“Change means movement. Movement means friction. Only in the frictionless vacuum of a nonexistent abstract world can movement or change occur without that abrasive friction of conflict.” was a comment made by Shaun Alinsky, an American writer and community organizer. It was an amazing comment, regarding conflict, where he explains the inevitability of conflict in this world. Yes! Be it big or small everybody has to go through the process of conflict. How one reacts to a conflict is often determined by one’s innate personality and level of maturity.
One such personal conflict that I went through at a young age was as follows:
It was primary 6 and it was my first year in
(Please feel free to share your insights on this conflict scenario. Probably a week later i'll comment on what happened after wards in the scenario above)
Hi Anand,
ReplyDeleteConflict is indeed unavoidable in life. The quote you used in your post really does make an impact on people. It is true that every action we take does have an effect elsewhere and those effects might escalate into a conflict. I agree that it is important that we know how to react and deal with conflict when faced with one.
In your personal account of a conflict, we must take you age into consideration at that time. Being boys at such a tender age, it is definitely understandable that both of you lacked a sense of maturity in that situation. However, you allowed your perception of Farhan to cloud your judgement at that point in time and his actions had only serve to provoke you and resulted in a conflict. Looking back at it, I believe that you may have handled the situation better if you had not been so quick to retaliate. We must always think before we act, as we are not able to take back the action. Controlling one’s emotion is also a way to resolve conflicts.
Nicholas
Hi Anand,
ReplyDeleteYou gave a really great quote. It gave me a lot of insights. Is it possible to live in a world without conflicts? Since change is a given constant in our world, there is bound to be conflicts. It is discouraging to know that in spite of the effort in preventing conflicts, it is still the inevitable. This let me bring up the point of good conflict resolution. If we all can resolve conflicts in a peaceful manner, conflicts in our lives would not seem to be all that bad. Your personal conflict that you depicted in your posting is something that I can relate to. After all, a similar situation happens to me before. Honestly speaking, I am not good in these types of conflicts. I usually play dumb. I would say tolerance is the key to resolve such conflicts. I know it is hard as emotions are hard to control. I probably would have reacted in a same way as you did. Let’s work harder to improve our skills in resolving conflicts.
Best Regards,
Weilong
The following is what happened afterwards in the conflict i mentioned above:
ReplyDeleteWe went back to class and everything went as normal that day and by the next day I forgot about that incident. However the following day, first thing in the morning, Farhan approached me. To my surprise he apologized and asked me why I reacted in such a manner the previous day. We soon started talking and after that conversation I found out that the reason why he pushed me in the first place was because he was pushed by one of his naughty friends, standing behind him in the queue. It soon became apparent to me that I was at fault for that conflict.
I wouldn’t say after that incident Farhan and I became the best of friends or anything but we certainly developed this mutual respect for one another. Till today,even after ten years, if I see Farhan on the streets, he would still stop by to have a casual conversation with me. Over the years I have met many shallow friends, who would disregard and ignore you once they see no need for you. Putting those types of friends into perspective, it is surprising to me that Farhan is still in talking terms with me, considering the nature of how our friendship kicked off. Although Farhan now looks ten times more “gangster like” with tattoos flaunting all over him I have to say I admire the way he approaches conflicts and treats his friends.( That is the main reason why I picked this example to quote regarding conflict.)