The invisible diagonal line equally separates the personalities of two similar and yet two very different people.  On the one side, gray and brown dominate, with technology galore and a small pirate flag emerging from his fish head cup of writing utensils, on the other, bright colors, cushy seating, very little technology with many books and photographs.  A shared space occupied by two distinct personalities and somehow it works.

Of course, if she had her way, the entire office would be bright and cushy cozy, a pretty chair replacing the brown leather rolling chair at the desk and a pretty wood desk replacing the industrial metal.  Not quite sure what his way would be as he doesn’t really seem to care about the aesthetics of this particular room.  However, in the office, there has to be compromise, allowing two people to be themselves in one space which in turn, allows them to work in a way that makes them comfortable.

Relationship is all about compromise, whether it’s within a marriage, at work, at school, at church, in government.  It’s about give and take, not always getting my way, and looking for those things in common that we can agree on.  Unless a person works and lives in a vacuum, in order for life to happen, things can’t be about them all the time without impacting someone else.

Laws and policies are mandated by imperfect people in hopes of creating a more perfect society.  They’re usually created when someone does something that others perceive as threatening that imagined utopia.  I know this because as a member of a state organization, this happened frequently, whenever someone did something that seemed unfair to everyone, a new policy was created.  We ended up with so many policies that we couldn’t keep track of them, many of them outdated and useless, but policies nonetheless.

Unfortunately, when there is a policy or law in place, the person at the top is responsible for carrying through with them.  There were several times during my tenure as president of my organization that I had no room for compromise because it was my duty to follow board directed policies, the argument being that if I had chosen to go against policy, it would set a precedent and chaos would ensue.  Laws and policies, created out of fear, anger, or simply controlling the envisioned outcomes, usually with the best of intentions, often just make it easier to not have to make individual decisions.

We make the argument that people are people, and to be fair, we need to have laws that are common to all.  However, just like my home office, where there are only two people, who are similar and yet different, sweeping policies, however convenient for the enforcer, can hurt the individual they were created to protect.  And that’s the kicker, isn’t it?  We THINK we’re protecting individuals when we create these policies, but what we’re actually doing is lumping people into groups, making it easier not to think of individuals as people but more like things.

Putting individuals into groups and labeling them by race, culture, gender, age, ability level, education, political party, religion, socio-economic status – the list goes on – just makes it easier not to look at them as individuals.  But no one fits neatly into these artificially created silos and that’s where the problems begin.  Someone who looks at the individuals within these silos will react very differently than a person who looks only at the silo.  And yet we continue to label others in order to try to make sense of things, to try to help certain groups who are struggling within those different silos. It’s a noble cause, but is it misguided?  Just like creating laws and polices that don’t take the individual into account, haven’t we created these labeled groups that do the same?

Even as head of a board, one entity, I tried to make those on the board feel like I was treating them as individuals, learning their strengths, learning their likes and dislikes, watching body language and making sure I was recognizing when they wanted to say something and when something was making them uncomfortable.  I hope they felt that way.  After all, how can you build relationships to bring about change and compromise if people don’t get to know each other?  Sometimes I roll my eyes when I’m a part of a group that does some kind of “team building” exercise, but anything that allows us to learn more about each other as individuals is a good thing, leading to honest communication and when needed, compromise.

I certainly don’t have any answers to all of the world’s problems here, but I have hope in the people I know and meet who have others’ best interests at heart, who are kind, who look at the individual, not at their labels, who have worked on the art of compromise.  I believe there are more of us than there are of those who struggle with flexibility and compromise.  It’s just up to us now to be the change we want to see in the world.