Tuesday, December 18, 2007

the "right way" and "their way"

"But don't cha know that i have been trying to do the right thing?"

"My whole life i have been trying to do the right thing," says a neighborhood
friend.

Here is the scene.
Two male friends in their twenties, each living at home, each wanting to be treated like adults.
One of the males has asked to sleep on the couch of the other male because he and his mother had an altercation that has almost caused the son to divorce himself from his mother permanently.
He has moved into our house for the night. He is so angry he wants to get a plane ticket out of
here immediately. We calm him down, let him vent, agree that he has a point and
then try to let him know that peace is more important than his anger. That his mom is all he has left and this one moment should not define his relationship with her for the rest of his life. He sleeps over, wakes up the next morning and starts to talk again.

"Don't cha know that i have been trying to do the right thing, but how
can you do the right thing when there is "the right thing" and then there is"

Their Way

How do you get along when the right thing and

Their Way

aren't compatable?

How do you get along when one person always believes that they are right and never wrong?
How do you get along when one person will not compromise?

i asked our friend to consider forgiving his mom even if she wouldn't forgive him. i finally convinced him not to hold a grudge and not to expect her to apologize for a long, long time. Her belief that she was right and he was wrong would not change. But he could be the better person by letting her be right until some future time when they could discuss it unemotionally. i told him not to give up everything because of one altercation. So he put his ego on hold. He has refused to be vindictive and seems to have defused a situation that could have meant never talking to his mother again. He is actually happy with his decision and his anger is now gone.

i've been thinking about this all day and i don't have an answer that satisfies all scenarios.
i go round and round.
The "right way" and "their way" which one do you follow?
Why does it cause so much discord in all of our lives and how do you defuse it?
George Carlin, the comedian, did a piece about the "right way" and "their way" in a manner i never could.
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