Imagine you have a pitcher with 3 cups of water in it. On the table are two empty glasses, each of which can hold 2 cups of water. With the water in your pitcher, you cannot fill both cups.
A reasonable discussion can be had about which cup you should fill and which you shouldn’t, or whether you should perhaps not fill either cup all the way, but you cannot fill both cups.
A reasonable discussion can be had about how you’re making the above decision, but you cannot fill both cups.
A reasonable discussion can be had about how you get water into the pitcher in the first place, whether you should be able to get more, and how you might do so; but with the water in the pitcher, you cannot fill both cups.
A reasonable discussion can be had about whether or not you wasted some water that was in the pitcher previously, perhaps by spilling it accidentally or deliberately pouring it somewhere else, but in the here and now you cannot fill both cups.
Sometimes – not always but sometimes – you get people who don’t want to have any of those reasonable discussions. They just want to yell about the fact that both cups aren’t full and act as if it’s happening either because the person holding the pitcher isn’t pouring harder or because 3 cups of water actually can fill two 2-cup containers if you believe hard enough.
Those people are unreasonable. Look for those who aren’t, and solve the problem with them.
The Opportunity Machine 