Everyday Canvas

Fictional Places to Visit and Negotiating

Prompt: What fictional town from a novel or TV Show would you like to visit or live in?

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This is something I never thought about. Probably Heaven as depicted in some fictional works, Shangri-La or Utopia or Atlantis or Emerald City in Oz, or Light City from The Restaurant at the End of the Universe by Douglas Adams.

Those places above, maybe I’d like to visit, but I like where I live, despite the-summer-into-fall hurricane stress every year. For me, what is the most valuable isn’t the place so much but the inhabitants, the person or persons living there.

Prompt: Whether we are aware of it or not, we negotiate, or meet people halfway, every day. What do you think is the success in negotiating?

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I was going to start this entry with, first, you should have something to negotiate about, but on second thought, even a simple question in a household like, “Can we change our lunch and dinner times, so we all can eat together?” means negotiation. Fact is we negotiate little things every day, if not with others, then with ourselves. ‘Should I indulge myself with new shoes even though I don’t need them or should I use my money for something else?’ That, too, is negotiation since it ends with a decision.

On larger issues, some of us refuse to negotiate because we are afraid of rejection. However, even if there may be rejection, we have little to nothing to lose if we try to negotiate and maybe something to gain because negotiation, in reality, is conversation with the goal of reaching an agreement.

If one of the negotiating partners enters this conversation with set-in-stone demands, in other words, my-way-or-no-way attitude, that negotiation will fail. You have to give something to get something.

Although money is sometimes involved, a negotiation isn’t always about money. Mostly it is about better conditions, security, and the satisfaction of various needs.

People, who are good with negotiating, claim that this skill is all in the negotiators’ heads. The more knowledge on the situation, the more you know about the person you are talking to, what he or she wants, and the more you are willing to give some and take some, the more your negotiating skills will strengthen. Also, neither side has to prove that what they want is justifiable; all they need to do is say it, put it out there, so it can be talked about. As the Supreme Court has ruled, there is no such thing as a false opinion.