Personal Narrative: Why Not To Rent

to pay for transportation, tuition, and textbooks, but my parents wanted me to pay $300 a month rent while I was living under their roof. I understood paying rent while I was working, but paying rent while I was trying to go to school seemed like an unnecessary burden my parents were placing on me. In order to resolve the dispute, I decided to communicate with my parents. I used a position-based approach. Rather than identifying my main issues, I identified why I needed to live at my parents’ house for free. I argued that it would be unfair to have me pay for schools on top of rent and that I was going to school in order to get a career. I used emotional manipulation since my “opponents” were my parents. Eventually, they agreed to let me stay at home for free, as long as I paid for my own expenses. I agreed to continue paying rent if I am still at home by the time I have graduated from school. …show more content…
In most situations, I will need to evaluate interests and not positions. Getting to Yes says that “interests motivate people” (43). My position was to not pay rent. My interest was saving money while I’m in school. If my parents hadn’t agreed to my positional based approach, I could have offered other solutions. My main goal was to save money, so I could have asked them to pay for my cell phone bill or asked to pay less rent. Getting to Yes also argues that behind every position is a compatible interest. My parents were interested in teaching me responsibility by having me pay rent and they wanted to receive payment to put towards the mortgage of the house. The compatible interest I had was gaining more responsibility, I wanted to go to school so that I could move on from a minim wage