THE FACTS MAY NOT BE ENOUGH
By Jim Davis

Have you ever noticed that we can get completely misled by “the facts?” Take, for example, the fact that life expectancy has dramatically increased during the last 100 years.

Several years ago I was doing research into my family history. I was astounded by the number of my ancestors who lived well into their 80’s and some even into their 90’s. The main reason for my reaction to this was a fact I had known for years – that the life expectancy back 100 years ago was much less than it is now. I had assumed that people then hardly ever lived past 60 or 65. My assumption was obviously wrong.

When I looked more closely at my findings, I began to understand. In addition to all those octogenarians I also found lots of accounts of infant deaths. It seemed that at least half of my ancestors’ families had lost at least one child before it was a year old. It was fairly common to find accounts of mothers who died in childbirth. And quite a few men and women succumbed to diseases and various kinds of accidents before they even reached what we call middle age. All of these factors combined to lower the average life expectancy, even though there were still quite a few folks who survived to a “ripe old age.”

I had made a common mistake. I assumed that I had all the information I needed and that everything I “knew” was accurate. It didn’t cause any serious problems this time, but that’s the kind of thing that can lead to misunderstandings that result in disputes.

On the other hand, sometimes it’s better if certain facts are disregarded completely. Think that’s ridiculous? Not necessarily. Here’s a simple example I’m sure anyone who has ever been in school can relate to.

Think of the fourth grade teacher who looks out across the classroom and announces to the class, “OK, it’s about time to go home. Everybody pitch in and let’s get the trash cleaned up off this floor.” Somebody inevitably will pipe up with, “But I didn’t make the mess.” To which, the wise teacher replies, “It doesn’t matter who made the mess.  It just needs to be cleaned up, and this is OUR room. We’ll all work on it together.”

Adult conflicts are seldom that simple to manage. People get bogged down trying to fix blame on each other based on “who did what to whom, and when.” But, it’s much more effective if everyone involved ignores that and just attacks the problem and works on it instead. This doesn’t mean that all problems will be easy to resolve, of course. Complex problems can be quite difficult, but most of the time they are not impossible. And often when all the people involved are working together on the problem instead of against each other, they uncover more really important facts. That main problem is usually made up of a lot of simpler pieces – all of them related. Many times one of those pieces will turn out to be the key. And the whole thing gets settled in a way that everybody involved can be satisfied with.