Happiness and the need for compromise

My wife and I have been bickering, arguing, generally not getting along for the last 2 weeks.

Embarassement prevents from admitting who, but one of us (ok, not me) decided enough was enough, apologized (not because she was wrong but because she was wise enough to understand the pride counts for very little) and explained that 14 days of pain had passed, 14 days we would never get to live again, 14 days we could have been happy and that perhaps the pain of compromise was far easier to accept and cope with than the pain of trying to see who could win.

As individuals we are proud. We want to be right. We want to be uncompromising. Why should we? I mean, aren't we important and others should dance to our tune.

Well, to put it bluntly, NO. As individuals we are not that important. Our problems, issues, concerns, in the scheme of things, are also not that important. Tomorrow a new day will start regardless of whether we are winning the war with our spouses or not or whether we feel hard done by or not.

Do not get me wrong, compromise is very difficult. We want the other person to bow to our demands (even if we do not know what they are).

But compromise is easy compared to maintaining combativeness. There is no such thing as "winning" a fight with your spouse or loved one. Words not only cause damage but, worse still, they cannot be taken back. Their damage and impact is permanent.

Life is short. Days fly by. It is simply criminal to waste them and not make every effort possible to be happy and to contribute to the happiness of those whom we love.

It does feel great to be happy. It feels even better to make others happy.

I realized that if I had put as much effort into making my wife happy during these past 2 weeks as I had into trying to show her she was wrong and I deserved an apology 2 "once in a lifetime" valuable weeks would not have been wasted.

The songwriter who penned "don't worry, be happy" was wiser than I ever gave him credit for.