It's my understanding that when the ramifications of not having come to a deal by now were decided upon, they were so dastardly significant that our leaders couldn't help but take this seriously and come to some kind of resolution long before the deadline would be reached. Oddly enough, the sense of urgency just wasn't there.

__________________
Though I am different from you,
We were born involved in one another.

For it was not into my ear you whispered, but into my heart. It was not my lips you kissed, but my soul.

Complete surrender should not just come at moments in which one faces overwhelming odds, but in the calm when it seems one is personally in complete control of one's life.