Ellis and Healthy Personalities #3: Tolerance

First, I would like to apologize for my lengthy absence. The holidays, and other events, had me pretty occupied. I hope that I will soon be back into the full swing of things.

Ellis’s third trait of a healthy personality is tolerance. Tolerance in this context is the ability to tolerate the actions of others. Ellis states that one who demonstrates tolerance gives “other human beings the right to be wrong, and while disliking or abhorring some of their behavior, still not blame them as a person, for performing this disliked behavior.” This is much much easier said than done.

Often in life people behave in ways that displease us. Sometimes we can let these things go, and sometimes we hold grudges. Separating a person from their behavior is not always an easy task. Our language and culture is often even structured in a way that persuades us to define ourselves by the actions that we take. We are naturally inclined to characterize individuals by the actions they take, and this makes it very easy to characterize them poorly for such actions that we do not find acceptable.

I think an important point that Ellis makes is that it is not healthy to unrealistically expect others to be perfect. People will inevitably error, or act out of the realm of reasonable action. It is completely foreseeable that most, if not all people that one may encounter in one’s life, would at some time or another happen to offend them in some way. So to expect that people will act perfectly and never offend or upset you is unreasonable. Furthermore, to expect any one particular individual to never offend is also unreasonable. This highlights a pitfall that many relationships, romantic, familial, or even friendships, become susceptible too. Sometimes when we become close with friends or significant others, we begin to expect them to be completely sensitive to all of our own needs and to consider our feelings with every turn. Not only does this reflect a poor self sufficiency, but it also is an unreasonable demand from others, and anyone relying too heavily on the consideration of one’s needs in other’s actions will be sorely disappointed. This disappointment can breed resentment and distain. This is why tolerance is healthy in this instance. You can learn to manage when people do not act in the manner that you would prefer.

Though one can learn to tolerate other’s actions, and accept them as fallible human beings as Ellis would suggest, this does not mean that one would be best if they were to roll over, or allow oneself to be subjected to unfair treatment. A balance of acting on self-interest in response to undesirable actions by others, while accepting those actions as those of a flawed and valuable human being can be struck. That is not to say that all actions should be unanswered and just roll off everyone’s back like so much water on ducks. For example, human rights violations, dangerous criminal actions, and violence should definitely be impeded, but the committers of these acts can still be valued. Like Hitler. The actions of he and the Nazi party were appalling, and I doubt that many rational individuals would argue that they should not have been stopped. Yet, with proper and healthy tolerance, we can see Hitler and his party as flawed, deeply disturbed human beings with irrational ideas, rather than inhuman monsters. From this viewpoint, we can still desire to end the actions of such individuals, but respect their human rights as well. It is when we let the actions of others affect us so deeply, begin to commit war crimes, murder for revenge, torture for information, and thus become the “monsters” that we seek to stop. That may be slightly politicized, which I try to avoid, but I think that this point very much applies here.

Overall, in daily life we can learn to forgive and tolerate the minor infractions against us, letting these small infractions go without holding these trespasses against others, accepting that those around us will err. It may be difficult to do, but healthy practice and demonstration of tolerance can lift a great deal of undo anxiety and stress that we experience by latching onto negative feelings that are often produced in reaction to the actions of others that happen to offend us.

What do you think about tolerance in this sense? Lack of this kind of tolerance seems to be the stem of a lot of anger issues. What kind of issues with anger have you experienced?

Come back next time when I talk about the importance of word choice. In the distant future I will cover Ellis’s fourth personality trait: acceptance of uncertainty.

The Nature of Interpersonal Relationships

I like relationships. I would argue that interpersonal relationships are one of the most important things about living. We are naturally social creatures, and loneliness can be devastating. The psychology that goes into personal relationships is fascinating to me. I like to think a lot about what makes the relationships we form, why with some people we tend to get along, and others not so much. Whether it is a romantic relationship, friendship, or relations with family members, the relationships we forge can shape who we are. More and more people in the United States like to think of themselves as individuals, but those individuals often rely very heavily on their relationships with others.

A great deal of people have a great misconception about relationships; in specific, fixing issues in the relationship. People tend to think that fixing a problematic issue is like a race, where you start at point A and run until point B is passed, then you brush the dust from your pants because it’s all done. This is not really true for much of anything, including relationships. You can’t fix a car to a point that it never needs any more work. There are always many little things that need constant attention, and the best one can really hope for is that it runs well enough for a long enough time that major work will be far off. Perhaps a car is a bad analogy. It is more like a skill. There is no point in which an athlete throws his hands up and says “all done, I’m perfect at soccer. I guess that means no more practice for me.” I think a great deal of the problem here is that many people tend to be very destination-based. They want an end game, a finished product that can be presented as near perfect. I feel that in reality there is no truly “fixed” anything in a relationship. Things can get better or worse depending on what happens, but relationships need continued care if problematic issues are to be under control for any extended period of time.

I tend to view an interpersonal relationship like a floating sphere, kind of like a balloon. This balloon is continually expanding and contracting over time as a relationship continues, but not evenly. Each point on the surface of the balloon is a different aspect of the relationship, and the further it expands outward from the center, the more smoothly that particular aspect of the relationship is progressing. The more these points contract, the worse these aspects are being cared for. There are setbacks in progression, and sometimes we are better with some things than others, so this interpersonal relationship balloon is in constant flux, contorting into bizarre shapes.

No relationship is ideal, and no relationship will ever reach an end result, or finished product. It is a continuing journey, where education and exploration never end. Our goal is not to obtain a perfect balloon, but to work on gaining greater insight into the motions of the sphere and work on problematic areas. It is unreasonable to think that any problem will vanish and never be a concern again. What we can do is learn skills and habits that help us manage the spikes and troughs of the relationship sphere. Things like communication, honesty, trust, and a shared vision of the relationship are ideas that help us manage our relationships; not like a race where we rush toward a definitive conclusion, but like maintaining a complex machine.

What do you think about the nature of relationships? Do you have any stories, ideas, thoughts, or issues? I always welcome open discussion.