All about compromise

I'm a lawyer.   A divorce lawyer.  I represent clients.  As a first step, I typically begin by talking to the other side, to see if there's a possibility of reaching some sort of agreement.

Wait, you say.  What are you doing reaching an agreement?  You're supposed to represent your client, you have to win. You can't reach an agreement without compromising.

And you're right.  Reaching an agreement means both sides have to compromise.  But you see, this is only a problem if you view 'compromise' as the equivalent of losing.

We compromise with ourselves, all the time...   I'll have the jelly donut for breakfast, and in exchange I'll skip lunch...   or,  I'll leave work early today, but then come into work this weekend ... or,  I'll turn the thermostat down now, and use the money I save to buy a new sweater. See,  there's nothing wrong with compromise, and if you compromise with someone else, it just means that you both get some of what you want.


Sure, this is a more serious post than what I've done before...  but I'm sitting here, drinking my tea.  This is an English afternoon tea, this time.  Yep, that's the name of it.  It's Ahmad Tea... called English Afternoon.    I normally drink an English breakfast tea, but the last time I placed my order, they were out of my  usual tea.  My options were to either stand my ground, and risk running out of tea, or to order something different.  So I compromised...  I called the company, told them I usually ordered Typhoo, and asked what they would recommend, to tide me over til they got more Typhoo in stock.  This was one of their recommendations.  I like it.