Everyone has some form or another of an Achilles heel and mine is I don’t suffer fools gladly. Some might say this is a good thing but I happen to disagree and here’s why.
The full or given meaning to the phrase is well documented both in the bible (2 Corinthians 11:19) and on the internet (en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Suffer_fools_gladly) but without real life examples. Based on this literature alone I too would consider the suffering of a fool to be unacceptable.
In simple English it is “the foolish actions of one, causing the suffering in others”.
Let me give you an example:
Your regular footy game and the team is going for the win. Everybody is pulling their weight and doing their best except for one player. He is your typical court jester and makes everybody on and off the field laugh and in fact, generally makes the game fun for all.
Suddenly the run of play goes right to where the ‘court jester’ is and just as he is mi-larking about, the opposition slips through and scores!
So the foolish actions of one member of the team have caused all the other members of that team to suffer loosing the game. Question now is, do you take that loss gladly, knowing that the loss is not because the other team beat you but rather because your team mate played the fool?
How about in the work place:
You spend months trying to woo over a client from the opposition using a carefully orchestrated plan. All is going well until another member staff does a simple (or foolish) thing which completely negates your three previous months work.
You are made to suffer by having to redo three months work through no fault of your own! Question is, do you take this suffering gladly?
And what about within the family:
The kids mess about and trash the things that you have worked hard for. Or the wife gets lazy which inadvertently costs you more money. And don’t forget the family pet who is constantly being a fool and constantly making you suffer. Should you take all this suffering gladly, should you just accept it as part of life when all of it could so easily have been avoided?
You’d be right in thinking, No.
But over time I have changed my mind and now I say YES, you should suffer all these fools AND you should suffer them GLADLY. Not to do so only leaves you suffering… and not the fool! And where does that get you?
So while nobody wants the fool to cause the suffering in the first place, once they have done it, there’s nothing that’ll change it so SUFFER IT GLADLY, or suffer it and be miserable ALONE.