In this chapter, I’ll share a few thoughts I’m exploring in another book of mine. I’ll keep its title a secret for now. But this subject feels so relevant that I decided not to keep it all to myself and to share some ideas and reflections that might already be useful today. After all, every new day opens new paths and chances. We need to keep the eyes and ears of our hearts open to possibilities rather than obstacles.
The most difficult kind of diplomacy, in my view, is domestic diplomacy. It isn’t a temporary game in which each side tries to achieve its goals while sacrificing as little as possible of its own interests. With our loved ones, our paths cross around the clock. And that calls for daily compromise and the art of finding agreements that leave everyone happy. And yes, it’s a lifelong process. Yet this is precisely where we suffer defeat more often than we do, say, in our professional lives.
Of course, at work or in business, we’re playing a role. At home, we want to relax and be ourselves, without having to look like a winner, a conqueror, or a star. After a public appearance, a speaker, a performer, or someone who has organized an event or carried a demanding project needs to take off the makeup, change into comfortable clothes, enjoy a good dinner, and sit quietly, staring into space. Ideally, we’d be sitting in the audience, at a restaurant or a bar, or, better yet, on our own sofa at home, letting others entertain us for a change. Because we’re tired of being on the other side. Now we want some of the bread and circuses we were only recently providing for others. A perfectly fair exchange. And yes, it can work. But not perfectly, and not always.
Reality presents us with a whole list of responsibilities waiting at home. Or perhaps our brains treat it as yet another heavy burden to carry. And naturally, resistance arises. If we don't interrupt this pattern in time, irritation, criticism, emotional distance, lingering fatigue, and boredom soon follow.
A little more about this destructive pattern, one we can prevent and defuse. We’ve long since found names for it all: domestic life, household routine, call it what you will… And of course, we’ve long since come to believe that everyday life at home is what robs us of joy, lightness, and celebration. Many believe the story can only unfold one way: a growing reluctance to come home, a separate little celebration elsewhere or a retreat into the virtual world, outside entanglements, friends who understand, support us, and offer exactly the advice we want to hear, or extra work and projects that, once again, keep us away from home as much as possible. Well, that is, of course, the darkest version of the story.
Now for another version. One in which it’s in our own interest to learn the art of communication, understand one another, and live together. So that we always want to come home from work. After all, however wonderful our vacation may have been, wherever our travels have taken us, the first thing we say as we step through our own front door is, “It’s so good to be home.” Because, much as we love new experiences, we can truly relax and feel safe when we return to a familiar place, familiar surroundings, a steady rhythm, our own comfortable bed, our favorite morning coffee.
We need rituals, structure, a framework we understand. Newness, on the other hand, is more about unpredictability and chaos, that pleasant little thrill, a rush of hormones, a fresh taste, and vivid sensations. But we can’t live in chaos forever. After every noisy party, we long for peace and quiet.
The good news is that any domestic routine that gently keeps us from unraveling can, and should, be enlivened with fresh experiences. We can find them in more places than in travel or outside-the-home entertainment.
By playing and talking with children and doing things together, adults learn to see the world again through the hungry eyes of explorers and remember what it feels like to be inventive and take risks.
And when you spend time with your partner (whose mood you can predict in seconds from a facial expression or a walk across the room, because you think you know them better than they know themselves), you can keep exchanging your different energies and ways of seeing the world, allowing the other person to look at life from another angle. Once we’ve labeled each other as predictable, we sometimes fail to notice that our partner’s views, tastes, and preferences have changed, and keep talking to an older version of the person.
After all, each of us looks out at the world from our own bell tower, seeing it through our own experiences and the conclusions we’ve grown used to drawing. We’re all woven out of patterns, and governed by them. And we know perfectly well that if something looks or sounds different from what we’re used to, it seems strange and doesn’t make sense. And if it doesn’t make sense, it’s complicated. And if it’s complicated, it means extra effort, attention, time, and adjustment. And if there’s no extra pay for all of this, why bother? Everything is already working as it is. That’s how we build misunderstanding, rejection, and tension into our relationships ourselves. And this isn’t only a problem between parents and children. It’s also a problem between men and women. Because we are, well, very different, both inside and out. The paradox is that our differences hold the very key to keeping life from becoming monotonous. Yet we defend our tall bell towers down to the last stone, ready to die alone rather than surrender to a partner who, by and large, wants the same things we do, only in their own way.
And so we struggle until, on some fateful day, one of us (or, God willing, both at once) decides that this battle is pointless and stops treating their own point of view as beyond question. And suddenly, the other perspective no longer seems quite so absurd. More than that, it beautifully complements your own and reveals more of what you see. Both bell towers declare a long-awaited truce.
Now the two structures rise gracefully atop their shared dream, with a broad bridge between them, where they can cross to visit one another or simply stand in the middle and admire the views. The sun shines above these beautiful buildings. Nearby, new bell towers are already rising, along with bridges of understanding connecting all the generations. And over this family city drifts the fragrance of domestic routine, woven from love, mutual respect, understanding, flirtation, humor, and the desire to keep building new projects together for as long as possible.