Tolerating or Accepting

I recently started to look at myself and how accepting I was of things that happen to me without holding on, resistance or judgement. Little did i know that what i thought was accepting was actually tolerating.
An incident that comes to mind is when I'm away at retreats and have to use unfamiliar bathroom and toilets. I noticed that the time taken to shower was shorter that the showers I would take at home. And if someone asked me how was the facilities, I would say, its pretty good, clean and well lighted. But at the back of my mind, i prefer to use my own bathroom


After observing what is happening, I realised that in my mind, there was a standard set for bathroom facilities in terms of size, cleanliness, the look and of course the functionality of the facilities. During my recent trip to NZ,  I stayed at 11 different motels and youth hostels. My judging mind went wild assessing the place and of course I would know that those that met my internal standards, I had longer showers and those that did not, I "mandi kerbau" only. 

So an interesting revelation is that I may say if someone asked me about the facilities, I would say "Oh its clean, good blah, blah, blah..." but if i observe myself, the truth is that I was tolerating the places that were below my predetermined standards and for those that were above my predetermined standards, I was indulging myself......

So where is the acceptance ? I realised how easily, I could tricked myself into thinking I was accepting when actually all that is happening is tolerating.

One important think I learnt from all this observations is that Tolerance comes with boundaries and expectations.