Share a room with a sibling and you learn that peace sometimes means headphones and a truce.

Living in one room with someone means peace cannot mean getting your way. It becomes a working arrangement: headphones when one of you needs quiet, lights out by a time you both picked, a rule about when friends come over. None of it is the ideal setup, and the ideal setup is not on offer. A truce you both keep beats a fairness argument nobody wins.

Propose one small specific trade this week rather than a general complaint. Quiet after ten, or your half of the desk left alone. Specific requests get agreed to, and general ones turn into a fight about who is worse.