Compromise. It's a good word or a bad word, depending on your perspective and the situation. For instance, if you have a decided preference about where you'd like to eat when a whole group is going out together, willingness to compromise for something most people prefer wins friends, makes for peace, and actually is a mature course of action. On the other hand, if you are in a situation where the general pull of the gang is away from your moral principles, and you decide to compromise, and do "just a little bit wrong", you may win friends, temporarily keep the peace, but it's an immature decision.
Either way, we don't compromise in an instant. "Compromise is not an event; it's an evolution." We think our way into whatever action we take. When we work our way through self-focus, and determine to compromise for the good of the whole, maintaining our convictions but surrendering our preferences as we do so, we have engaged in a evolution of thought that prioritizes what is best and unselfish. Again, on the other hand, when I think myself away from my convictions, and talk myself in to making a decision my heart and integrity cannot 100% endorse, I have let my "evolution" DE-volve me into someone less than I was.
Compromise. Is it good or evil? It's your call. Every single situation, it's your call.
2 comments:
So true. And the closer we are to a person, or the more we've invested in a situation, the 'easier' it is to compromise. Holding our ground...maintaining integrity...is not easy, yet it's a slippery slope when we let compromise sneak in.
When I was raising my daughter, who is now almost 29, I told her this: "Everything you do, every minute of the day, is a choice. Choices have consequences." She would often lament about that "c" word.
Fast forward five years; one of the sweetest days of my life was when she thanked me for holding her accountable for her choices during youth.
It really does all come down to the choices we make, or do not make, the path we choose to follow, the road we turn away from.
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