"Do not accept someone as they are;
Love them truly for who they are."
Art of Living gives this very insightful look at understanding fellow human beings.
How we very often struggle with coping with the behaviour of others, how they make us feel, and react. It's obvious human nature that we will not like all the people that we come across in our lives. Because not all will appeal to our level of understanding of the world, in its parts, or the ways we think the life should function. I'm only giving an hyperbolic example of how we think our way is right and end up disliking ppl who do not fit into our category of "right". Reasons for disliking someone can be as silly as inability to use the fork and spoon properly.
But that is not the point here. This line very subtly tells us how simple affection is. The dictionary gives a wide variety of meanings of affection, but the one I'll be using in context here reads-a strong feeling of love or bounding. So when there is a strong feeling of bonding, there is no chance of dislike now, is there?
But we will disagree, because all of us know, that even if we love someone dearly, there are some aspects of their personality that we don't like.
So the difference here is between acceptance, tolerance, and love.
As I understand this, acceptance of someone's bad traits is harmful, because in the long run, we will some day stop accepting. We'll run out of acceptance.
Tolerance too, works on the same lines. There is a phenomenon in the human nervous system of tolerance. When a nerve ending is stimulated, it fires signals to bring out sensation and the appropriate action. When this stimulus is kept constant at the nerve with slowly increasing intensities, the neuron stops firing signals. So the stimulus which initially caused a considerable reaction will now only be a mild sense of something happening. It is the exact samemechanism with us tolerating somebody. After a point, we stop reacting.
So, I quote again,
"Love people for who they are, the whole of them."
No acceptances, no 'inspites', no conditions.
(This is a new concept for me, and I'm still learning to understand this fully. This post is of how I understood this phrase, my interpretation, and my doubt, after a little help from my friend. So please feel free to suggest or correct.)
