I want it all or nothing

A common mistake people get themselves into all the time when they try to go for the " All or nothing" solution. It goes without saying like this : It is either I get my PhD or I don't want to go to college at all, it is either I marry the most beautiful girl in Jordan or I'll stay single for the rest of my life, it is either I buy a house in Abdoun or I stay in my own lousy apartment for ever, it is either I buy that latest model BMW or continue taking public transportation. In other words, either I get it all or I don't want any of it, "I want it all or nothing".

In all of these cases and many more; a second, or even a third best choice would have resolved the problem in an amicable way without the need for staying in a permanent state lamentation.

The most popular example where you see this 'all or nothing' phenomena thing happening time and time again is when you hear someone talking about the Arab Israeli conflict. Most notably; when s/he are granted a space to write in an American newspaper such as the New York Times, or the Washington Post, or when the person is granted a two minute television interview with one of the major TV net works like ABC, NBC, or CBS.

S/he immediately try without any success to foist hundred plus years of conflict history into a 750- word article, or a 2- minute television interview. You see them usually starting with the inception of Zionism in the late 1890ties and taking you all the way to our present day current events.

There is no way on earth any one can talk about a complicated subject like the Arab/Israeli conflict in such a short period of time no matter how much intelligence that person possesses. No matter how skillfully the words and sentences get manipulated, the subject matter will not look the way it should because a lot of facts and key events will have to be omitted to accommodate the time given to speak, or the space given to write.

Everything takes time and lots of it, if you want to buy that house in Abdoun you may need to save money for over a 30- year period in order for you to be able to purchase that dream house of yours, if you want to get that PhD you need to start with your high school diploma and then two years associate degree, followed by a bachelor, and a master and so on. You can't just sit there and say : I want it all and I want it all right now or I don't want nothing, in all likelihood you will get nothing with that kind of an attitude.

Just think of how long did it take for the Lebanese civil war to come and go !? over 15 years, for the Sudanese civil war ! over 20 years, for the Algerian civil war ! Gulf war ! it started in 1990 and it is still raging until our present day.

I guess what I'm saying is that if you insist that you only are going to accept all or nothing it means that you are setting yourself up for failure from the get go. Everything has to start from somewhere and then work its way upwards or whatever direction it may take, for you to sit there and say 'I want it all' nothing is going to happen no matter how many times you say it, repeat it, or dream about it. When you get tired of saying it you will find yourself standing in the same spot that you started from.

For our experts on the Arab/Israeli conflict, they can't keep on saying that either Israel relinquishes all of the occupied territories lost during the 1967 Arab/Israeli war or there is never going to be peace at all, and do it in two minutes television interview or in seven hundred fifty words article, I have a news for them, it isn't going to happen.

They have been doing is since resolutions 242 & 338 were enacted by the UNSC more than 35 years ago, and thus far nothing happened. The reason being : You can never say ' I want it all or nothing '