Breakfast with Solomon - Proverbs 17:14

"The beginning of strife is like letting out water. So abandon the quarrel before it breaks out."

When a wise person sees a disagreement coming that they cannot win nor has no easy resolution, then they abandon that topic. There is no point in pressing on and having both parties draw a line in the sand. There are other ways of making one’s points than a verbal debate. Once this starts, then turf has to be defended. Egos can be bruised. A person never wants to be proved wrong especially in some public way. It would be better for the person to come to your opinion in private through a discovery process.

This is a “how to win friends and influence people” strategy, actually where Dale Carnegie got the basis for his book.

The exegetical idea is that once you let water out of a jar or cup, you can never put it all back in. Some of it will always be somewhere else. You can't un-ring a bell.

The wise person does not try and persuade through a frontal assault but rather through win-win strategies and persuasive private arguments.

Until tomorrow,

Gil Stieglitz

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