Jasmine+McIntosh

Tolerance During our lifetime we will have to learn to tolerate people everyday of our lives. __I have to tolerate sports, my parents, and school, and it’s not as easy as you may think.__ But as we grow older we learn how to deal and how to cope with many difficult situations.

__One of the hardest topics for me personally to tolerate would have to be sports, and sports related issues.__ Take the officials for example, I can’t stand it when the refs are for another team. I don’t understand it, I think that you should either call everything, or call nothing. At our game Monday in Athens this annoying event occurred. Everything was getting called on Union City, we were getting fouls left and right. We would barley reach for the ball, Foul, Athens did the same, they let it slide. It was like they were waiting for us to foul, they didn’t care if Athens did but if UC did then we got yelled at. Now, Mr. Cayo is a calm man, but when the calls start upsetting him, you know that it was unfair referring, and he was not the only adult upset with the calls. I also can’t stand it when people play a sport they don’t understand. When we go over a play for 4 weeks I would think you would know it well enough to run it in a game. There were people at our last game messing up on plays we should have had down weeks ago. Another example that comes to mind happened at our last home game. I’m not going to name any names, but we were running a simple play known as motion. The whole concept is to pass and pick away, you pick in the opposite direction you passed the ball and yet some teammates could not seem grasp that. And to top it all off, I can’t stand it when a coach doesn’t play to win. I understand that in middle school you should give everyone a chance, put the people that are there to win, and there to play high school ball should get that chance. I think that you should break the reality to the people that can’t play early so that when high school comes along they are not embarrassed when they try out. I know that statement probably sounds bad on my half, but this is truly and honestly how I feel. Tolerance, something you won’t master in one night, trust me.

__Everyone has difficulties with their parents, but those you must tolerate because it’s not your place to say otherwise. I would like to shift the focus from parents, to parent, because I will mostly be discussing how I’ve attempted to tolerate my father.__ I’ve grown up in an abusive household, the abuse was not towards me, but my mom, and that’s just as hard. My dad was/kinda is, a drinker, and every time he would get drunk he would take his anger out on my mom. It used to be just loud hurtful arguments, but it turned into more than emotional abuse. He began to hit my mom. I will never forget in 5th grade laying in my bed scared to death listing to my dad tell my mom he was going to kill he r. My mom was hiding in the bathroom at the time, but then he kicked down the door, I heard a scream then silence. Do you know how horrifying it was as an eleven year old kid laying in bed thinking her mom was dead? But then I heard her, I was relieved, but scared all at the same time. Then the door opened and I could hear my dad walking up the stairs. All I could manage to think was, “He heard me, he knows I’m awake.” But to my dismay he “woke” me up and said we needed to go to the hospital because mom had broke her arm falling down the stairs. I obediently got up, got dressed and got in the car, fearful that if he knew I was on to him then he would hurt my mom even more. When I saw my mom I wanted to cry, her arm was lifeless, and a soon to be bruise near her eye was forming. Nevertheless I kept my mouth shut, I kept this a secret for about 6 years. 6! Then my mom came to pick me up from my 7th grade b-ball practice, I didn’t want to leave, but when I saw the tears in my moms eyes I knew we needed to leave. When we got in the car I found out what had happened, my dad had choked my mom in front of my sister. He choked her! She couldn’t take it anymore she feared if she went home with him that night we would grow up with out a mom, and a dad in jail, so she called the cops. We sat for four agonizing hours in the police station. Finally they told us we could gather our things and he would take us somewhere safe, because my father was in custody. I was scared, but I had to be strong for my family. Unfortunately since it was his first offense they couldn’t hold him that long. When he got out he contacted us, he begged my mom to let him see her and his kids he was a changed man and he would never lay a hand on her again. So after a couple weeks my mom allowed my dad to see us, and for a while he did change, but just long enough to get my mom back home. Now he’s back, he may not hit her anymore, but my mom’s still afraid to mess up, or make him mad. I hate my mom having to live in a home when she is scared, and depressed all the time, but I do my best to keep her happy. My dad has changed in that era, but now I have to worry about him leaving at all hours of the night, not coming home. I will/ have learned to cope with these things though. I have to tolerate this everyday of my life but what choice do I have? I guess everything happens for a reason.

__School is a less stressful situation to deal with. Homework is one of the hardest topic to tolerate__. I understand that we will have twice as much work when we become adults, but 3 essays and 15 math problems all due on the same day. Don’t you think that’s a little extreme? You also have to deal with difficult teachers, but mostly subs. It is very hard to work in an environment when all you receive is negative energy. When you have a sub that thinks she is better than everyone around her and is rude, it’s hard to be respectful and polite. Lastly you have to deal with annoying people and friends. When you are trying to work in class and all you can hear it the annoying guy sitting next to you talking about Starwars or some stupid thing like that. You just have to bite you tongue and tolerate it, because you can’t jeopardize your education, and when you use all your energy to yell at that person you have none to do your work. It’s hard, but you have to learn to deal with it or you will never excel in life.

Life’s what you make it. So you have to take the good with the bad, smile when you’re sad, and never regret anything you do. Because everything that happened, happened for a reason and made you a better and stronger person. When you learn to tolerate people who bother or annoy you, who knows what other tasks you can accomplish. __Tolerance, it’s not learned in a day, but will stay with you for a lifetime.__