I’ve done a pretty good job of cleaning up, getting rid of, giving away, letting go of and all points in between when it comes to people, places and things that I’ve been tolerating and allowing to get in the way of having a pretty good life.  My little 1980’s closet is fairly cleaned up and organized, the junk drawer in the kitchen is pretty cleaned up, why heck I even folded up all the towels in the linen closet well enough they’d make a hotel blush but every once in awhile something will slip by and I will continue to tolerate it and let it bug me and let it eat at me and not do a thing about it.

This is a really simple and small example.  I have these two plastic step files on my desk that every so often I have to go through the items and clear away, mail away, take care of or throw away stuff that I’ve crammed into one of the six slots.  I am a recovering pack rat so I have to watch for my tendency to hoard.  Anyway, one of the plastic step files developed a crack in it’s back spine so that if I hit the thing just right it would fall over and everything would come tumbling down.  Meanwhile, the other plastic step file sat in a nice safe spot on my desk with stuff in it that I knew I wouldn’t be using on a regular basis that I could file away.

Finally today, during a break from a project I was working on, I took everything out of the broken step file but instead of throwing it away, I just switched places with the other one.  I cleaned out both of them and I even put some books that I will be using to CLEP out of some classes in the broken step file that is now in a safe place where the broke doesn’t affect what is inside of it.  I can’t tell you how much better my desk area feels to me now.  There is not so much crap on my desk (I weeded it out, took care of it or filed it away) and I’m not having to deal with a broken step file every day plus I have no idea why the books that are now sitting in the broken step file look so good in it, but they do.  I can see them better than when they were flat on my desk getting stuff piled on them.  Sure, I could buy a new step file and throw away the old one but why?  It works just fine and you can’t even see where it is cracked now.

I realize that this one example of a toleration is such a small, small example of some of the bigger behaviors, people, things, etc. that we often tolerate but I wanted to show you how just making one small change in something that has been flying around your consciousness like one of those gnats that sometimes come out of nowhere around a house plant or an innocent bowl of fruit, can make such a difference.

And, of course, if taking care of a small toleration in your life can cause you to feel such great relief well imagine what it’d feel like to stop tolerating something really big?

It’s okay; you don’t have to stop tolerating everything at once. Just take one small step and see what a difference it will make for you!