You release a heavy sigh, knowing you still have to fix the first one, and put a piece of tape over the second crack. Before you realize it's happened, there are cracks in every window of the house. Sunlight doesn't fill the rooms the way it use to. You tolerate dull shadows and wonder why you no longer feel a sense of joy. The days show up, one after the other, and you plod through them.
Happiness seems elusive.
You can't quite grab hold of it. When you let things slide, making compromise after compromise in order to keep peace, your sense of 'self' slips away. Small compromises on matters of little importance are the natural give and take of peaceful interaction between people. Compromising on matters of great importance creates cracks in your attitude and the way you view your life. It's impossible to know what you stand for if you always sit down and acquiesce to someone else's ideas of how or why or when things should or shouldn't be done.