Imagine experiencing lasting happiness in your relationships, where barriers of disagreements are bulldozed into oblivion and where the only act before you to perform is selflessness. How is that? Now this is possible. There’s always an escape route out of every disagreement opened to all of us but few see and utilize that.
The law of the third factor states that, at the extreme end of every two opposing arguments is the third -- anonymous. To know it, both parties would have to discard their arguments to collectively reach out to the third factor. This factor has in itself the answers to the deepest disagreements ever known to man. The disagreeing parties both need to thrash their arguments to be opened to the third factor which is a tranquilizer. It could take the form of cross fertilizing both arguments to reach to that third factor --- the known.
This isn’t compromise --- a scary word to some people. This has everything to do with dropping your pride and seeing a different picture. What if at that moment your points are not valid however, researched they may be? What if the other party’s points are the truth?
Many hitherto happy homes have been reduced to rubble because of deep cutting disagreements; blossoming relationships crippled in the knee, and flourishing careers shredded all because people have decided to disagree even when they are in the wrong. Parents have driven their children from their homes because of disagreements bordering on who has the righteous argument. I am on the right. You’re wrong. It has a lot to do with our orientation --- our scripting. We come to this life with limitless potentials and free will spirit only to be scripted to think in one way. Suddenly everything becomes a survival of the fittest. We reduce everything including our relationships into minions of battles to be won. When we out-talked our partners during disagreements we feel buoyed up and exhilarating. What a way to think?
Some people adopt tantrums to win their little battles over others. They cling to the make-believe that, if you can’t beat them, discredit them. So they toss words aimed to breaking the psyche of the other party rendering him/her inferior. Then sensing insult in the air, s/he would also fire back leading to deep cracks in their relationship. To Eleanor Roosevelt, nobody can make you inferior if you don’t let them.
You need to stop reducing the relationships in your life into minions of battles to be won over. We need a new paradigm of thought. Instead of thinking win-lose, why not think win-win. You win, I win. How true happiness would we experience when we reach out to understand the other party. Sometimes we deceive ourselves when we utter statements like, “I understand your point”, ‘I have been where you are right now” and “I feel for you”. No you don’t. Not at all. To demonstrate your understanding, discard the narration of your autobiography and listen for once to the other party. Sometimes by thinking their way you win their confidence for yourself which brings huge dividends in the future.
Sometimes the third factor is Christ Jesus --- sacrifice, unconditional love, or selflessness. Think about it. Perhaps it’s win-win. Or collective victory.
