“Where’s my dinner?” was a line frequently repeated in the late 90’s movie “Pleasantville.” The story was set in the 1950’s. Every evening, at the same time, the husband would walk in the front door, set his briefcase down, and ask, “Where’s my dinner?” All was well (for him at least), until one day when he came home and his wife had left. He was at a total loss. And initially his issue wasn’t so much that his wife had left as it was that his dinner was not ready at the prescribed time.
It is easy to watch that scene, thinking, “What a goofball – he doesn’t get it.” And while we may be correct, I wonder how many of us have locked our brains down around some issue that is just as trivial in the scheme of things. Whether it has to do with when we eat dinner, what we watch on TV on Wednesday nights, or what our Sunday afternoons look like – the question we have to ask ourselves is, “What is it worth?’
You see, far too often individuals will fight for “this is the way it should be,” even if it means verbally and emotionally destroying the other person. It will probably come as no surprise that a recent study reported that families who reject rigidity are happier than those that don’t. The reason is simple: we want to be more important to our mate than some “have to” rigid way of doing things. So, we have to ask ourselves, “What is it worth?” How important is the issue at hand? More important than our partner? We will probably instinctively answer with, “Well, no, of course not.” Yet our behavior may indicate the exact opposite.
This week, when you are about to dig your heels in on some arbitrary (at least to some people) issue – stop and ask yourself, “What will what I am about to do or say, communicate to my spouse about his or her value to me?”