Compromise, A Sign Of Maturity And Wisdom

September 24, 2019,

Achieving everything you want, every day, all of the time, can be described as the epitome of life for some, especially over achievers.

Sounds like a great lifestyle.

For some.

We are cautious about fully embracing it, especially if it is a continual state and most important, if it appears to be obtained at the expense of others.

If that is the case, then it means the person with everything is acquiring this Nirvana without compromising.

In a world of billions of people and dwindling resources, compromise is essential.

Compromise comes from the Latin word compromissum, which means “mutual promise.” It can be a noun or a verb.

The most extreme causes for compromise is during times of war, or the potential for one, if both sides can’t reach a compromise.

When they do, it is often described as reaching an agreement of settlement by mutual concession.

In our relationships with family, friends and positive business associates, there really is no dispute, just a need to find common ground on personal conduct or boundaries in a common association.

Real estate transactions are a perfect example of making deals and considering offers which is all about compromising if you want to close.

The epitome of depicting compromise appears to be found in the entertaining and admittedly educational television series Sister Wives.

Sister Wives is an American reality television series broadcast on TLC that premiered on September 26, 2010.

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The show documents the life of a polygamist family, which includes patriarch Kody Brown, his four wives, and their 18 children. The family began the series living in Lehi, Utah, but has since moved to Las Vegas, Nevada in 2011, and the unincorporated township of Baderville, Arizona, (northwest of Flagstaff, Arizona) in mid-2018.

Mr. Brown and his four wives have stated they participated in the show to make the public more aware of polygamist families and to combat societal prejudices.

Probably a good idea since many, especially within the Christian community, believe that a man should only have one wife.

No matter the alternative reasoning.

Others see it as an excuse to have what many married men quietly desire.

A harem.

Mr. Brown believes his polygamist arrangement is legal because he is legally married only to one woman, and the other marriages are spiritual unions. The series led to the Brown family being investigated for possible prosecution.

This resulted in a federal judge declaring Utah laws that guard against polygamy to be unconstitutional; citing that the state may still outlaw plural marriages, but it cannot prohibit polygamous cohabitation.

Okay, the clouds part. You can live with as many women as you want, have children with them but only be married to one.

Intriguing. And you thought those kind of compromises and word massaging only happened in Hippie communities.

Moving beyond the law, which allowed cohabitation as a compromise, we were more focused on the internal compromises that both the wives and children have to make in a very large family.

From chores to television watching, eating and yes, multiple women having their special night to make love to their husband, that is all about negotiations and compromise.

“A compromise is the art of dividing a cake in such a way that everyone believes he has the biggest piece.”…Ludwig Erhard

Just the idea that a person is not deeply entrenched and stubborn in getting their own way is a plus.

We have our own view on compromise.

We think it is a great thing.

Whether you are in a love relationship, friendship or business negotiation, we feel it is good not to win at the other person’s expense.

We don’t see that as a victory.

We like it a little better when we compromise, give them a little more than they expected and they leave the table happy.

Why?

Our experience has taught us that one upping them sows the seeds for discontent and revenge.

In most cases we just think that it is worth it. If you can, without compromising your core values, make the other side happy. Go beyond, as it were, creating a situation where they are simply content, or worse, quietly unhappy.

There is another point of view that goes counter to ours.

In a thought provoking January 2012 article at Psychology Today, Mr. Christopher Peterson, Ph.D. shares, “The word compromise is used in two different senses, one typically positive and the other typically negative. The good sense of compromise is finding a common ground with another person, as in reaching a mutual agreement about a difficult course of action affecting both of you. The bad sense is being untrue to your core values and beliefs, as in selling out to achieve some short-term goal.”

We get his point.

In terms of core values, where we disagree is that when put in a tough enough situation, most people will find that their core values are not as important to them as they originally thought.

Torture is the worst case scenario.

Poverty is another.

In some countries a single mother is forced to sell herself just to survive and feed her children.

The same woman, in a stable society would never remotely consider such a horrific life choice.

It is easy to speak of core values when you have a designer roof over your head and plenty of food on the table.

In literature, one of the ultimate compromises in found in George Orwell’s masterpiece, 1984.

Nineteen Eighty-Four, often published as 1984, is a dystopian novel written by English writer George Orwell published in June 1949.

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The novel is set in the year 1984 when most of the world population have become victims of perpetual war, omnipresent government surveillance and propaganda.

Hmm, sounds a lot like 2019.

In the novel, Great Britain (“Airstrip One”) has become a province of a superstate named Oceania. Oceania is ruled by the “Party”, who employ the “Thought Police” to persecute individualism and independent thinking.

The Party’s leader is Big Brother, who enjoys an intense cult of personality but may not even exist. The protagonist of the novel, Winston Smith, is a rank-and-file Party member. Smith is an outwardly diligent and skillful worker, but he secretly hates the Party and dreams of rebellion against Big Brother. Smith rebels by entering a forbidden relationship with fellow employee Julia.

As literary political fiction and dystopian science-fiction, Nineteen Eighty-Four is a classic novel in content, plot, and style. Many of its terms and concepts, such as Big Brother, doublethink, thoughtcrime, Newspeak (Fake News), Room 101, telescreen, 2 + 2 = 5, and memory hole, have entered into common usage since its publication in 1949.

The book also popularized the adjective Orwellian, which connotes official deception, secret surveillance, brazenly misleading terminology and manipulation of recorded history by a totalitarian or authoritarian state.

In 2005, the novel was chosen by Time magazine as one of the 100 best English-language novels from 1923 to 2005.

Here Winston and Julia privately proclaimed fierce loyalty to one another. They risked so much in their love for each other.

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Finally when their relationship and more important, quiet rebellion, was found out by the totalitarian leadership, when separated and tortured, they both compromised and sold each other out.

Why be forced to compromise in everyday life when perhaps it is better to do it with a sincere smile and willingly.

Whether we know it or not, we are constantly compromising, even when we drive down the freeway, go shopping at the local super market or are patiently waiting in line in an organization’s office.

Voluntarily compromising is mostly a very good thing.