One of the new concepts I picked up recently is that our lives are as miserable as what we allow ourselves to tolerate.

These tolerations literally destroy the quality of our lives.

A toleration is basically something that kind of works, but not really. When something is broken, getting rid of it is a no-brainer. It's the stuff the kinda works, but not the way it's supposed to, or not the way you'd like, that typically aggravates us.

We can add more good stuff but as long as these tolerations continue to cast a dark shadow on our lives, we will never be happy. 

Also, it's usually a lot easier to fix or get rid of tolerations than to create a new whole new layer of awesomeness.

If you know me at all, I'm all about automation and systems. 

So my focus for Q2 is every week to identify one toleration, however small, and get rid of it.

It has been an amazing experience, really.

I'll give you a couple of examples.

Five years ago, I bought something that I had been dreaming about for over 20 years, my first drumkit. Within a week after spending over $7,000 on it, I ripped the mesh head of the kick drum because of the way I installed the beater on my kick pedal. With some love and duck tape, the mesh head lasted me for the entire 5 years. And would have lasted me another 5 years, probably. But every time I sat down to drum, guess what I had to look at? The goddamn patched-up hole. A new one costs about fifty bucks. But because the old one was perfectly functional, I kept tolerating it. Well, it's gone now. Along with a half-broken Hi-Hat that I also replaced. Funny thing, every time I sit down to play now, I'm a happy man!

Here's another one that many men will relate to. Get rid of old socks and underwear. This may sound materialistic and shallow, but you do feel different wearing new $50 brand-name underwear compared to underwear you bought 3 years ago in Walmart as a value pack of 3 for $9.99.

Lastly, fire a vendor or a client (or both) who kinda pays or kinda delivers but is a nightmare to deal with. You know these vendors and these clients. We dread every time we have to deal with them but we do it anyway because we get SOME value out of it. But if you asked yourself, knowing what you know now, would you have ever chosen to deal with that vendor or client again, you know in your heart of hearts, the answer would be no. End this relationship. 

By systematically getting rid of the things we unnecessarily tolerate, you will live a much happier life. I promise.

What toleration are YOU going to get rid of in the next 7 days?