I have been thinking today about sacrifice. When there is
something you really want, how much are you willing to lose to get it?
There is a debate relating to deafness that I find
incredibly interesting. If your child is born deaf, but they could hear if they
had a simple operation like a cochlear implant, should they have the
operation? (Obviously this is all incredibly simplified. Read a little more about it here.) From the hearing community’s perspective, there is only gain with an
operation like this - music, voice, bird song, fire alarms and a million other
sounds we don’t even register anymore. What is there to lose? But from the
deaf community’s perspective, it’s a huge sacrifice. It’s a sacrifice of
personal identity and a sense of community. What about privacy, and peace? Why
should they change who they are?
Everybody changes when they’re in a relationship. We do it because
we adapt to the other person, we compromise, we make room in our lives for them
and we make decisions based on a foreseeable future with them. It happens
naturally as the relationship grows more serious - it’s expected.
But on the other hand, it is a tricky thing to ask someone to change. Tell your
girlfriend to get a boob job? Expect to lose her and one of your testicles.
But what if a particular change is needed in order to move forward
with the relationship? I need you to get a different job. I need you to stop seeing your ex-boyfriend-now-best-friend. I need you to have that operation. Would you ask them to change, or would you change
yourself?
Would you be willing to sacrifice who you are, your
identity, to be with the person you love?
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