Accept acceptance

LITTLE ROCK — In a recent uncomfortable circumstance, I found myself practicing the art of tolerance.

I sat in the office of my local optometrist and found myself seated beside a heavy-set middle-aged man conversing on a cell phone. He was receiving limited reception, and in order to continue his enthralling dialogue with the other party on the lack of local fresh produce, he decided to raise his voice within 10 inches of my ear.

I was slightly irked, but there were no other open seats, and I didn’t want to reschedule my appointment. I could’ve politely told him to stop, but he looked to be the type of person who could beat me into a fine paste for looking at him the wrong way.

I wrestled with the overwhelming urge to shove this man’s smartphone into his right nostril for a few seconds, and then I tolerated his behavior until the moment he left a short time later.

I was tolerant.

In my dictionary, when one is “tolerant,” he puts up with behavior he finds annoying because social and societal norms dictate that he does so.

If you’re a child of the 1980s and ’90s like I am, it stands to reason that you’ve heard the term tolerance used a time or 12. Tolerance is used in this instance to refer to positive relations between people of different races, religious beliefs, sexual preferences, political affiliations, and the like. During my school years, I was taught to be tolerant of others who were different from me. We use this term in the same manner today.

We have it wrong. Tolerance shouldn’t be our goal.

Acceptance is what we should aspire to instead.

Acceptance, simplified, means for one to accept someone else for who they are, no matter the differences between the two. And when you think about it, would you rather be accepted or tolerated? Which sounds the most loving, and which sounds the most reluctant?

In the name of pragmatism, let me say that I know that it isn’t possible for acceptance among people of all races, creeds and preferences across the board. I am an admitted bleeding-heart liberal, but my rose colored glasses are tinted lightly enough for me to be rational.

There will be bigotry, ignorance and misunderstanding on the horizon.

Living in the small-town South for 24 of my 27 years, I’ve been surrounded by it on a daily basis. I can’t even wrap my mind around some of the small-minded ideals that some of my fellow citizens have exhibited over the years.

Even though my words may fall on deaf ears, I have a childish wish to live in a place where acceptance is valued over ignorance. We continue to preach tolerance in our schools, but preaching tolerance is just preaching indifference. And indifference facilitates no change.

Maybe I’m just arguing semantics here. But when it comes to the matter of societal relations, don’t words mean everything?

A single derogatory word can hurt a person deeply enough for them to react with violence-we see it every day. Even though tolerance and acceptance seem closely related, they’re really worlds apart.

In that vein, acceptance doesn’t mean adoption. Let’s be reasonable.

For some odd reason, certain people (especially those of the “good ol’ boy” persuasion and the religious right) believe that accepting another person’s right to live life as that person wants also means being a part of that particular culture. It doesn’t.

For example, befriending someone of a different race or religion doesn’t mean an instant conversion. Spending time with a person who happens to be Jewish doesn’t require a instant knowledge of Hebrew and the casual use of Yiddish.

Be yourself, and accept that others have a different view of the world and learn from them. Don’t tolerate them like I tolerated the “loud-talker.” (How Seinfeldian was that?) It’s an insult.

Shouldn’t acceptance be the gift we give to those we encounter every day? As far as I can tell, the only cost is giving up ignorance. That really doesn’t put a dent in the wallet, does it?

Save your tolerance for the loud talkers of the world.

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Adam Reeves is a senior print journalism major at Arkansas Tech University in Russellville and a contributing columnist to the Hattiesburg American in Hattiesburg, Miss.