Attack or Negotiate?

When my sister decided to enroll at los Andes instead of going to a university abroad, I only questioned myself on whether I should put an end to her free access to my baked goods. It was a shallow concern, as she was only glad I forced her into a diet. The sister I enjoyed being with and had been able to coexist for a couple of years had, in my eyes, helped me, but it was all actually about her. As she broke my mental agenda in which she would move out at eighteen, my patience was now limited. I expected more but she saw that as a phony or childish complaint. Now that I'm reading Thank You For Arguing by Jay Heinrichs, I can relate my struggle to survive with another human being, with the successes and failures that came along, with rhetoric.

My sister moved up to college where she was free to choose the scheduled she liked. She could've chosen early classes to get them over with but outside a military academy it's normal to want to sleep. Meanwhile my dumb preteen obsession with coffee had messed up my sleep cycle and all I could dream about was getting diagnosed with insomnia to get the appropriate pills. My mom respectfully decided not to laugh at my request and just sent me to bed, where I just stared at the ceiling as our new home theater emitted sound waves, mechanical waves that shook up my eardrum and my sleep. I decided I had to convince somehow my sister to stop watching TV at her new schedule were 11 PM was about the time she would turn to "Gossip Girl."

As Thank You For Arguing's author explained, the least experienced in persuasion often decide to attack. My first strategy was to download and app to my iPod that could control the TV. I went to my bedroom and laid on my bed waiting for my sister to turn the TV on. When I could finally hear, "Last episode Chuck and Blair...Xoxo, Gossip Girl," I opened the app and shut the thing down. My sister turned it on. I turned it off. The thing went on for a while until I lowered the volume, which made her realize it wasn't just shutting off but that someone, most likely her annoying little brother, was controlling it. My parents confiscated my iPod for a week.

My attack failed as I should have wanted to win an argument, not just take her down. Jay Heinrichs suggests first to get to people's emotions, then change their opinions and after that make things happen. My argument against my sister sort of followed what he states and eventually made me see that younger siblings actually can propose something. As a former lawyer, my mom lectured me that just annoying my sister (in other words) was not an argument. If I wanted something I had to convince someone,  not push them towards it. It was the first time I got started to understand how rhetoric works,

I told my parents I wasn't doing well on PE. I was starting to get better at sleeping with noise, but the sleeping quality just wasn't as good. They believed it, mostly because they'll always worry about my inadequacy for sports. Poor me, I'd get rejected for life if I couldn't play soccer. I told them my sister should do sports instead of just watching TV and that did it. We couldn't grow up to be unhealthy bookworms, I'd exercise in PE (sure..) and she'd go to bed earlier to go to the gym. I guess it wasn't that hard to convince her of that. Now I'll never now what happened with Blair and Serena's teenage nightlife in the Big Apple.
I'm definitely not a master of rhetoric but I sure can handle childish disputes like discussing with my sister. Occasions like that made me, gradually, understand that fighting doesn't work. It wasn't only because I couldn't possibly fight, but because there was an option that actually work. For some school elections I was running for, I heard some people say they'd rather vote for someone who would go yell at the HS office until things happened. I'm not a fan of the "Ay Mister!" strategy, so I guess that's why I lost.