“Seth material” search engine (Jane Roberts)

Now. Up to a certain point compromise can be a beneficial reaction. Beyond that point it can turn against you. The compromise of your job therefore was beneficial to a point. Ruburt feared that the point had been reached beyond which you could not afford to go, while still maintaining those ideas, ideals and goals that were your own.

Ruburt has learned to make compromises, not always gracefully, but he has learned that they are sometimes important. He is against them on principle however, and very straightforward in his approach. He saw your life adding up to a circle of compromises – compromises that would cost you your vitality, both of you, in the end.

In some (underlined) respects he was right about compromises, and some made in the past out of well-meaning ignorance cannot easily be changed. These concern your family.

Too many compromises do sap your strength and energy, and the work compromise was inhibiting your painting to some extent. The focus upon compromise automatically forces you to withhold directness and energy in all of your pursuits. After a while despite yourself you take on to some extent the coloration and attitudes of others who live by compromise entirely, until your own clear-cut ideas and purposes seem more and more unrealistic.

There is some envy. You did not say that you intended to devote yourself to your own painting, and this should be verbalized. The family compromises began long ago, out of a misguided sense of sympathy, and now to some extent or another will continue. Here you are caught in a compromise of emotions. Ruburt feels this particularly strongly, because he is so sensitive over such relationships to begin with. The situation however is such that almost any clear emotion is automatically denied expression, shunted aside and often replaced completely by an opposite—all under the guise of the idea of (in quotes) “being good and understanding.”