When my neighbour Susan put up bright floodlights, my wife Gia and I had trouble sleeping. Susan and her husband Mark were politely asked to turn them off, but Susan refused, saying she was afraid of the dark.
We tried a lot of different things, like blackout curtains, heavy doors, and moving the furniture around. It didn’t work. It got more and more frustrating, but making things worse wasn’t the answer.
Gia had a great idea that made everything better. I loosened the bulbs while she was away, and the lights went out. This subtle method went on for months, with Mark getting tighter and me getting looser.
Mark talked about the frequent outages one Saturday. I thought the cause might be noises in the street. The lights were turned off after he agreed.
Our sophisticated method solved the problem without any arguments. To keep the peace and reach your goals, sometimes all you need is patience and imagination.
