October 10th is World Mental Health Day. Every year the focus of the World Health Organization (WHO) is to encourage everyone to invest in their mental well-being. In honor of that, I’d like to share a few arching principles on tolerance, acceptance, and resilience.
According to Psychology Today, “Tolerance is the attitude of being fair, objective, and permissive towards others’ opinions, practices, race, religion, nationality, etc.” The virtue of tolerance can also be applied to difficult or unpleasant situations.
I think of tolerance as the first step to acceptance. If you accept the way things are you waste less energy resisting it and can devote your energy to improving your situation.
The more you practice tolerance and acceptance and use it to achieve any positive outcome for yourself, that is resilience. Psychology Today defines resilience as, “the psychological quality that allows some people to be knocked down by the adversities of life and come back at least as strong as before.”
2020 has been a challenging year for all of us, in one way or another. Despite it all, this year has raised your tolerance threshold and caused you to accept a new norm. I hope you also see it has made a more resilient you.
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