All too often in this world everything seems so black and white. What I’m talking about isn’t the literal coloration of the world becoming a two-tone black and white. Rather, I speak of many people and their views upon the world and their unwillingness to change. At one point or another, people need to understand that their beliefs and ideals aren’t the one and only acceptable belief or ideal. Eventually, people need to learn how to compromise.

Earlier in high school, I had a few friends who believed that their religion (primarily christianity) explained all of the wonders of the world and then some. Contrarily, there were others that saw science and logic as the only way to explain many phenomenons that occurred in this world, and saw that as a way to understand everything. None of these people were wrong in my eyes; if they found something that gave the answers to their questions that nothing else could and it put their minds at ease, then that’s all that matters. However when it got to the point where my friends were at an impasse, simply unable to acknowledge the others’ point of views to be possible, then situations became rather annoying.

As I’m sure many other people do, I looked at both points these religious and scientific groups had to make and came to the conclusion that I can follows both of these sets of beliefs. As I listened to my friends discuss their points of why they are undoubtedly correct, I finally chimed in with my own thoughts, explaining how I understood both sides and was willing to keep an open mind. I can say that I will never forget the bewildered looks they gave me, as if they never heard of such a dastardly idea, “Compromise? Understand? How dare you be fair and keep an open mind! You know nothing!”

At the time I didn’t think much of it. I never really discussed it with my friends again, and I just shrugged it off, letting life go on. But then more recently attention to this was brought back to me as Bill Nye and Ken Ham had a debate all too similar to the one my classmates had years ago. Although their points were more thorough and backed by relatively solid evidence, it was really the same as I saw when I was a freshman in high school.

As I’ve come to realize over the course of high school, compromise is necessary for all things. It’s how we prevent civil acts of violence. It’s how we manage to prevent wars. It’s how a father keeps his son happy, as he promises to buy the son a puppy if he maintains all A’s and B’s throughout the school year, instead of straight A’s as he expected the year before. In hindsight I see that my friends lived a rather one-sided life as they had their beliefs, but that’s about it. However, because of them I was able to discover my own beliefs and values in life, and what I firmly believe in is compromise.