The Things We Tolerate

A while back, I worked with a wonderful coach, Tara Sage, who had me complete this exercise around what she called tolerances. Tolerances are those seemingly small things we put up with–those annoyances that we either keep meaning to do something about but never do, or accept without considering it could be changed. 

For example, at the end of my hallway is a storage closet. During the renovation, I’d removed the lower shelves to fit my vacuum, Swiffer, broom, and mop. The closet floor doubled as the place where I stored my recyclable cans, a bucket, some bags, and the boxes of Swiffer pads. 

The truth was, I couldn’t stand it. The broom handle was a bit too long so I had to place it at an angle, and I often had to maneuver it around the bags. The cans would accumulate and make it hard to fit the vacuum inside. The small drips of water from the empty seltzers mixed with the dirt from the brooms, creating a mess.

Removing the shelves meant overcrowding of everything on the two remaining. They were stuffed with the bulk package of bath tissue, cleaning products, candles, toiletries, and those random items we tend to stash away.  Every time I opened that closet door, I felt a little bit of energy drain from my body. Yet, I kept tolerating it. 

One day I finally asked myself why, and it was because I'd mentioned my idea for installing the same type of adjustable broom holder I’d had in the home I’d lived in before to a friend. It hung on the wall at the top of the basement stairs, and it was a perfect, space-saving solution. It put those items out of the way but within easy reach. He thought they would interfere with the stairwell. In fact the stairwell was even wider than the one I had before. I'd been putting up with the disorganized closet for over a year, when the solution was there all along.

When I realized that this was one of those tolerances, one of those things that drain your energy and that when added to other things we tolerate, turns into big downers, I went to Home Depot. I found the spring grip clip adjustable storage bar. Then I went to the lumber department and had someone cut a board into 2 pieces. When I got home, I installed the new shelves and organized the closet. I even found a lightbulb for the bathroom. That lightbulb had gone out months ago, and I was just tolerating the fact that I had only one working bulb. Jeeze. 

The next day, my friend installed the broom storage bar at the top of my basement stairs, and when I clipped those babies in, I felt instantly lighter. These seemingly small things made me so happy that I went back and forth opening the closet and then opening the basement door just to look at them. 

As women, we carry the emotional load of the household in most cases. We’re the ones who notice when the closet is a disorganized mess or the bulb is out or we’ve run out of tissues. We’re the ones who do the organizing and the light bulb buying and the replacement of the household staples. That storage closet is where I keep my bulk pack of bath tissue, and while it may seem like a small thing, not having to buy boxes of facial tissues means one less thing I have to tolerate. One less thing to find space for in the closet. One less thing I have to bring in from the car when I go shopping. One less thing I have to crush and throw in the recycle bin.

Often, we are so busy that we don't even realize the things we tolerate. It helps to stop and think about them, make a list, and then decide what tolerances you could tackle today. It's amazing how these seemingly small things, when dealt with, can be so liberating.