After decades of pushing for better pay and overall conditions, Mike Chapman of Nashville, Tennessee, finally reached an acceptable compromise with reality.
“Kind of a laissez faire approach,” said Chapman. “I don’t bother it, and it doesn’t bother me. I would have liked to get more favorable terms, but we both finally realized that an atmosphere of mutual respect was as good as it was going to get."
As Chapman explained it, for most of his life, he had sought to improve upon reality – to make it more pleasant, more palatable, and generally more meaningful. “All to no avail. You can’t change someone who doesn’t want to change, and boy, reality was – and still is – pretty entrenched in its ways. I was only trying to help, but it was intent on continuing on its own course.”
In exchange for his promise to forgo trying to change it, reality has agreed to stop shoving itself in Chapman’s face all the time. “I know that it’s there, and I won’t make it try to go away," said Chapman, "but I'm no longer obligated to engage with it all the time. We can each do our own thing.”
Since reaching this long-in-coming compromise with reality, Chapman says that life in general has gone more smoothly, if not always positively. “There are fewer bumps in the road – but sometimes that road is straight downhill. So it goes.”
At the end of the day, however, Chapman says that he feels comfortable with the ceasefire with reality. “There’s no point being constantly at war with anything. Quite honestly, it was reality that ended up dictating all the terms of the settlement. But even if I didn't emerge victorious, at least I made it out intact. That's something."
