On tolerations

Having set my goals for the year, one of the areas on which I am going to focus is that of dealing with the various things I have been tolerating. I’ve made a great start already and it feels wonderful!

The first change was, for me, quite major – I have a new car. My old car, which I’d driven for 13 years, was contributing to my list of tolerations. The electric window on my side occasionally didn’t work (embarrassing at the car park ticket machine), the clock is never accurate as it spins round when I re-set it so I go with the closest time, the heater only kicks in just as I get to my destination, and sometimes the boot won’t open – usually in summer time when I have shopping including frozen goods, necessitating the removal of the rear seats. Oh and there’s the moss growing along the window edges….. However, she has been a great car, and I am sad to see her go. The replacement is a joy to drive and it is such a relief not to have various things niggling me.

This also lead to a change of mobile phone, after debating the best way to move my hands free kit from one car to the other. That itself would have been something to tolerate so, swayed in part by the rare treat of speaking to someone in the car phone shop who was over 20 years old and who didn’t patronise me, and mindful that my old phone was very out of date and had shut down a few times after I’d spent ages carefully crafting a text message, I succumbed to a new model and a new, up to date hands free kit.

Minor things have included getting my favourite boots mended, throwing away broken kitchen utensils, putting new batteries in my main phone so the machine once again flashes when there’s a message - well you get the idea, lots of things that needed fixing.

And it has really boosted my energy! I feel inspired to clear some clutter so am currently clearing my backlog of filing by dealing with five items a day – fairly slow but this daily target is easily achievable and I usually exceed it. Spring cleaning may happen early this year in my household!

So – what are you tolerating in your life right now? What have you been putting up with for a while, knowing deep down that it’s draining your energy? What needs fixing, cleaning, changing, finishing, sorting or discarding? What is one step you can take today to reduce your tolerations?


Jackie