Broken Teacups

xvii. tolerance

(a rant)

Most of the time, when people say that "you need to accept all opinions", what they really mean is "you need to accept my opinions".

Because let's face it. We live in a society where the word hypocrite is synonymous with Homo Sapiens. People talk about tolerating other people's ideas and thoughts when in reality, they will only tolerate those thoughts as long as those thoughts agree with their own. The minute someone else's thoughts contradict their thoughts, they get all fired up and angry and defensive. They don't realize that the other person is not trying to prove them wrong or anything like that. In fact, the other person is merely stating his/her own opinion and probably doesn't even care of this person agrees with it or not.

But then again, quite a few times people state their own opinions in order to prove that they are right and everybody who disagrees is completely wrong. And that really bugs me. Because we are human beings and we as a species should not be trying to pull each other down so much. So what if someone else thinks differently than you do? We were born with different eyes and different ways. We see and perceive the world differently. If you can't handle the fact that not everyone is going to say you're correct, you need to take a step back and think about whether you have common sense or not.

In any argument or debate, or any discussion of the slightest importance, there will be people with different mindsets and different ideas. Stubborn people who will not let anyone change the way they think. During discussions, there will always be two or more sides and that's okay. That's just how it works. That's life, for goodness' sake. We all have our own feelings and our own ways of going about things and that's okay. A-okay.

Another thing I completely dislike is when people do not state their opinion because they are afraid nobody else will agree with it. It doesn't matter if other people agree or not; what matters is that you have a brain and you thought of something and you aren't afraid of claiming the thought as yours, even if it doesn't match everyone else's. You don't need to jump onto the bandwagon and follow the leader. This isn't kindergarten. And if you are able to think of something like that, something that doesn't agree with everybody else, there will definitely be someone somewhere out there who thinks you are a genius and believes in you wholeheartedly. So don't be afraid to tell people what you think - even if what you think differs from what they think.

I can't talk about specific countries but in most of them and in the world as a whole, we have been given the Freedom of Speech for a reason. We are allowed to form our own opinions. Everybody is. We all have different thought processes.

We also need to accept that while we are permitted to voice our thoughts, we might also be wrong. Not because we are dumb or stupid but maybe because we've been given wrong information, maybe because we've been missing out on something. For a lot of different reasons! We need to accept the fact that while having our own opinion that differs from popular opinions doesn't mean we're always wrong, it also doesn't mean we're always right. Sometimes, there is no right and wrong. Nobody knows what is the thumbs up and what is the thumbs down. But that's okay too. Seriously.

We have to learn to be brave enough to have our own opinions.

We have to be tolerating of others' opinions.

We have to accept that we are not always right.

Let your voice be heard. But don't let it drown out everybody else's.

AN - inspired a tumblr post: always respect everybody's opinion, as long as it doesn't disrespect anybody else's existence.