Compromises

Compromise, if not the spice of life, is its solidity.
--Phyllis McGinley

Whether you're single, married, with children or without, it's not possible to get through the day without agreeing to at least one compromise. There are little compromises, like car pool schedules and homecaring jobs, and there are bigger ones like working conditions and coexisting with teenagers. Tolerable compromises are those we enter into fully - with complete knowledge in advance of exactly what we're surrendering. The other kind of compromises - the ones many of us make day in day out - are the strong, silent type. They're strong because we're stuck with them and silent because they're unconscious or unspoken.

Compromises are the art of the bottom line. We can bend only so far and then we break. Knowing just how far you can bend is the first step in making sane agreements, but this isn't as easy as it sounds.

The more complicated life becomes, the simpler your bottom line must be. How about this. What must you have from this situation? What do you absolutely need? If you need it, you must have it. It's non-negotiable. If you didn't need it to survive, it - whatever "it" is - wouldn't be a need. Then it would be a want. Unfortunately "wants" are the currency of compromise. I want, you want, we all want, which is why we bargain. Keep in mind that your want might be another's legitimate need. The best compromises, like a workable lifestyle, cover all your needs while satisfying a few of your wants.

If you dread it, don't agree to it. If you do end up doing it despite your dread, you'll despise the whole deal, including the person who agreed to it: you.

Be affable. Try to see the other person's point of view. Be flexible. Be as generous as you can without gagging. Ask that the highest good for all parties be achieved. Trust your instincts. Pay attention to physical clues, especially your gut; it's there not only to aid in digestion, but to serve as a reliable aid in discerning what's best for you.

Above all, follow Janis Joplin's advice: "Don't compromise yourself. You are all you've got."

-Sarah Ban Breathnach, Simple Abundance - A Daybook of Comfort and Joy©1995

In living life to it's fullest, we learn that it is important to identify what we want and need. Where does this concept leave us? With a large but clearly identified package of currently unmet wants and needs. We've taken the risk to stop denying and to start accepting what we want and need. The problem is, the want or need hangs there, unmet.

This can be a frustrating, painful, annoying, and sometimes obsession-producing place to be.

After identifying our needs, there is a next step in getting our wants and needs met. This step is one of the spiritual ironies of living. The next step is letting go of our wants and needs after we have taken painstaking steps to identify them.

We let them go, we give them up - on a mental, emotional, spiritual, and physical level. Sometimes, this means we need to give up. It is not always easy to get to this place, but this is usually where we need to go.

How often I have denied a want or need, then gone through the steps to identify my needs, only to become annoyed, frustrated, and challenged because I don't have what I want and don't know how to get it. If I then embark on a plan to control or influence getting that want or need met, I usually make things worse. Searching, trying to control the process, does not work. I must, I have learned to my dismay, let go.

Sometimes, I even have to go to the point of saying, "I don't want it. I realize it's important to me, but I cannot control obtaining that in my life. Now, I don't care anymore if I have it or not. In fact, I'm going to be absolutely happy without it and without any hope of getting it, because hoping to get it is making me nuts - the more I hope and try to get it, the more frustrated I feel because I'm not getting it."

I don't know why the process works this way.

I know only that this is how the process works for me. I have found no way around the concept of letting go.

We often can have what we really want and need, or something better. Letting go is part of what we do to get it.

Michael

email: archangel155@hotmail.com


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