From Icks & Itches To Acceptance

Name your top three pet peeves.

Icks like pet peeves; completely meaningless and yet the thing upon which many people have derived their social identities. When I hear someone say, “that’s my pet peeve” or “it gives me the ick”, I imagine that they peeve like a petulant child or itch like a crackhead in withdrawal mode and lose their composure over something that causes no harm to anyone; Not a good look at mental maturity there!

On the flip side is this thing called tolerance. People really believe that it’s the standard of social interactions. It is good, but it is far from the standard. Tolerance seems to be something that comes from the place of some kind of “superiority” over others. So tolerant people happen to be some of the most passive-aggressive people out there.

Why acceptance? Because we’re all equally humans with quirks that are irritating no matter how nicely we think we present them. Acceptance allows us to continue to treat people with human dignity no matter how we feel about the parts of them that they especially cannot help.

Take some acceptance with you today and give it as a gift to the least deserving person in your circle. Make them feel understood even if you don’t. Remain calm, composed, and kind. Look at the person behind the action, not the actions over the human.

That said, I don’t have Icks or pet peeves. Yes, I get irritated by certain things but a part of adulting is knowing how to contain my irritations and it begins with what I tell myself in my mind. I implore you to do same; it pays!