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My friend Nick is a very talented statistician who once struggled to connect with his son Johnny.
Two years ago, Nick’s wife Deborah arranged a trip to take Johnny to visit the village in which Nick grew up.
Nick has a heavy accent. He is not the most polished. Nick works so much that he often misses important events of Johnny.
As Johnny grew up in a very comfortable middle class neighborhood, he and Nick started to drift apart. They could go on for days without talking. Deborah has managed to keep the family in peace.
The trip took place in the summer, which was hot and humid. Two years before their visit, the village finally got running water, but the whole village had to share one tap. There was no clean toilet. No air conditioning. Not even a decent electric fan.
“Dad made his way to America from this village?”
“Yes,” Deborah said.
Nick started college in 1987. Upon graduation, he received a full tuition scholarship to earn a PhD from a state university in the United States.
Before 1990, only 1% of the high school graduates could enter a college in China. In the poor rural areas like where Nick came from, the ratio was even lower. Due to lack of funding and widespread mismanagement, colleges were far and few.
It was more than the boy could imagine.
Deborah further explained to Johnny: ”Your dad did not even know how English was pronounced until coming to America. Nobody taught him how to dress, how to use a fork, or how to play baseball when he was at your age. The village had only 4 hours of electricity supply everyday when he was finishing high school. But your dad was the smartest, most hardworking and most honest kid this village had ever seen.
Now he wants you to have the best education we could afford. Your dad is not perfect. He does not like to talk about himself. But he is doing everything possible so that you could live a dream he could not have at your age.”
That trip totally transformed the relationship between Nick and Johnny. It brought them really close. Nick is no longer the eccentric “old man” whose broken English and sometimes strange manners Johnny has to put up with. Nick is the inspiration Johnny wholeheartedly embraces.
This is a classic example of transforming “being tolerated” into “accepted”.
Very often, they are confused to be the same, but the difference can not be greater.
When Nick was living peacefully with Johnny as they were drifting apart, struggling to connect, he was being tolerated.
When Johnny got really close to Nick after spending just one day in the poor village with Deborah, Nick is accepted.
Being tolerated is rather injurious. It reminds people of the painful void of acceptance. It confines us to a lonely oblivion, numbing and helpless. It is a silent rejection.
On the contrary, feeling accepted is empowering and healing. We are again embraced by those we care about.
As a stroke survivor, are you feeling tolerated or accepted by your own family and friends? Caregivers, what do you think? If you would not mind, please share your story.
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