It's not that compromise is inherently wrong

" It's not that compromise is inherently wrong," he said to me.
" I just didn't find it satisfying. And the one thing I've discovered
as I get older is that you have to do what is satisfying to you. In
fact that's one of the advantages o f old age, I suppose, that You've
finally learn ed what matters to you. It's ha rd to know that at
twenty- six. And the problem is th at no body else can answer that
question for you. You can only figure it o ut on your own."
Twenty years later, I think back on that conversation and appreciate
my fri end's words mo re than I did at the time. For I am
getting to an age where I have a sense of what satisfies me, and
although I am perhaps more tolerant of compromise on the issues.
Obama in audacity of hope