Is there a Cost to Victory?

Invariably, when I do a reading, a specific image pops up, more often than not. I see a chasm so vast it fills me with intense sadness. It doesn’t happen with every reading, but I see it enough to know it is a sad trend.

The chasm represents a breakdown in communications to me. It’s my image of a separation or split in a family.

As soon as it flashes, I can feel sadness overwhelm the reading. Sometimes, there is anger, bitterness, and self-righteousness, but mostly a heavy feeling of grief.

It’s usually over money or the care of an elderly parent. One did too much, the other not enough.

There is always a memory of a heated argument. Voices were raised, and things were said that cannot be unsaid. Measurements made with rulers devoted to one side or the other. Apathy is another catalyst. A lack of communication until a gulf is created that is too wide for a conciliatory call.

In each corner, a combatant’s chest heaves with indignation. Outrage fills rooms as houses divide.

In this sanctimonious-charged atmosphere, there is no longer any gray, just black or white, right or wrong, and an inability to compromise on anything, even with the tiniest insignificant ideas that might have been tossed away a day ago.

Impasse. Blockage. Deadlock. Stalemate. What is the actual price of being right?

Every person has a point of view, that one square foot from where all core beliefs spring. Some are passionate, and others keep it to themselves, but when worlds collide, the differences, either imagined or very real, create a massive gulf of outrage. Do you stay and fight it out or let it go?

What happens when there is no way to see eye-to-eye? How do we decide who the victor is?

Are we so sure in our point of view that we are willing to risk it all?

I am a Libra through and through, which makes me hold those heavy scales up with each argument.

I have learned to step outside my body from my point of view and watch the passion of my opponent.

I discovered an astonishing truth! Like a bandage ripped off a hairy piece of skin, it is a shock that my challenger feels precisely the same way I do.

I am not necessarily speaking about politics or human rights. I’m talking about the stuff of everyday life, the blood and guts that make up friendships or family: borrowing money, who saw it first, what was said, who did what — the real important things in a relationship.

Is proving you are right different with friends than it is with siblings? What happens when going toe toe-to-toe with a spouse or partner? How about a parent and child scuffle?

What’s the point of it all? Does any of it matter in the end? Is any argument winnable when you fight with a loved one? How much will you lose by being the victor?

What is the actual price of victory, and in that triumph, what are you really winning?