External disagreement can often result in internal agreement.

Outside influences - people, partners, situations - provide us with challenges that allow us, not only to grow as people but also to discover who we are for ourselves, inside.

It is difficult to see yourself by yourself. Others allow us that luxury, though it may not feel so much like a luxury as it does like an annoyance or an inconvenience or an outright affront. The end result of less than satisfactory interpersonal exchange or life experience, though, is a deeper understanding of the self.

Even very small interactions can make for very large insight.