One of my major flaws is accepting differences in others.

The closer somebody gets to me, the more scrutinizing I become. The primary reason that I have difficulty with this is that I have set certain personal truths in stone that may or may not be held by others.

Let me give you a few examples; don’t take any of this politically.

  • Be productive and desire only the best.
  • Hard work merits leisure and not the other way around.
  • Religion is horrible but in most cases spirituality is not.
  • Intolerance should be used with discretion, such as for institutions like the Westboro Baptist Church.
  • Racism is never, ever right.
  • Homosexuality, same-sex marriage, and anything that involves consenting, adult humans is fine in my book.
  • Emergency contraception is fine by me, though I still am searching in my heart for how I feel about abortions at other development periods. I’m leaning towards anything after the first 4-6 weeks is a bit barbaric, but I have never been in the situation so I can’t answer that yet.
  • This world isn’t all about you. If you aren’t giving something back and don’t plan on giving something back, you can bet I’ll say something to you about it once we become friends.
  • Self-respect is mandatory. Don’t do anything that will make you feel bad about it later. If you do, learn from it and don’t whine about it.
  • Drugs are another personal choice thing for me. I don’t use them, but if somebody wants to in the privacy of their own home, that is his/her decision.

As you can see, my general philosophy is one of excellence, tolerance, and open-mindedness. I don’t live my life by any book, historical event, non-historical event, or whatever. Human beings are born with different traits, but it is a daily struggle to learn to accept my friends for exactly who they are.

It’s almost laughable how hypocritical I must seem sometimes standing on these pillars of understanding only to call my friends on the carpet for not doing their best, lacking confidence, or just generally getting too comfortable.

I hope that as I get older this goes away.

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