Have you ever read a story without a conflict? If there were no conflict, there wouldn’t be a story. Yet we do everything we can to avoid conflict in life. Could it be that we are looking at conflict wrong? What if we saw conflict as simply the way we move our story along? Perhaps the problem with conflict is that we see it as a problem.
What if we saw conflict as an opportunity? When I taught English conflict was one of the standards I was required to teach. In stories, as in life, there are three main types of conflict. And in life, as in stories, how we resolve the conflict will determine how our story turns out.
Man vs Nature: We might say we have no control over nature, but is that true? In California, for example we live with the threat of earthquakes. How we prepare, determines the outcome of our story. I’ve been watching the news and saw a bus full of children being evacuated from a flooded road. Why? The driver had been warned about the possibility of flash flooding. The outcome of the story depended on what was done about the conflict.
Man vs Self: We all deal with our own inner demons. It is in how we choose to deal with those demons that determines how our story will end. My inner demon has told me to accept my lot at all costs or “suffer the consequences”. What consequences? Who knows, but I was sure they must be there. As I learned to fight that demon and stand up to my inner bullies, I learned that there really weren’t as many consequences as I thought. My life became more peaceful, and my story opened up to more possibilities.
Man vs Man: Perhaps the most difficult conflict to deal with is the conflict with others. We can’t change anyone else. We only have control over ourselves. What if there was a way to understand what or how our buttons got pushed, and stop it before it happened? What if we could identify our weak spots and figure out what we were doing to push other people’s buttons? Would we do it? Or would we look at that knowledge as a way to get ahead and just keep pushing buttons?
As with all things in life the real conflict is to decide how we will use the knowledge we have. Will we use it for good, and in the service of others? If we choose that way, it will lead us to richer opportunities of service.
As Steve Farber, founder of Extreme Leadership said “Do what you love in the service of people who love what you do.”
#conflict #story #conflict resolution #DISC #ReDISCovering Conflict