Overcoming Conflict

One of life’s greatest challenges has got to be coexisting with others. Otherwise, the end of Jean Paul-Sartre’s play, The Exit, wouldn’t have been as jaw-dropping. 

Whether it’s a close or distant family member, a co-worker, a stranger in the street … if you are human and living today, you must have experienced conflict with another of your kind.

Having said that, I've come to the conclusion that there is only one way to move past conflict -that is by communication. To actually sit down and hear what the other has to say about his or her backstory is found to be the most effective. And to sit down to resolve your matters really depends on how open and comfortable you are with yourself. Whether you accept change, constructive criticism, or hearing out your flaws. Just how much are you willing to quiet down your self-important sense of self and listen to the person across from you saying what sounds like offensive words to you. That is the moment when you know you crossed the line of fear into facing yourself with all there is.

It is truly amazing how one can learn so much about him or herself by just going through what seems like the most uncomfortable moment of what you would rather avoid altogether. 

Avoiding conflict may be interpreted as cowardice or lack of openness. However, I believe the reason why people avoid conflict is because they haven’t yet found peace within. People avoid conflict because they are not ready to hear about that unknown part about themselves. The blind spot. The one seen by everyone except by the most important person in this journey we call life: you.

I’ve been reading A New Earth by Ekhart Tolle, and although it sounds cliché, the book like any other book has an interesting perspective about overcoming miscommunication with yourself and others. First of all, it took the word ego to a whole new level. It is not the same Freudian ego that is known globally (the book actually states that). It is the ego that controls all the familiar sentences and thoughts our mind tell us on a daily basis.

Basically everything, literally everything out there in the real world, depends on your own perception about yourself. And that self-perception is another misinterpretation of the word ego. Ego is literally in control of your hypothetical driving wheel that Incubus sang about in 1999. Once you read how ego sneaks into your life, actions, relationships, reactions is when you can put an end to it. 

However, this self-awareness makes me wonder if there’s anyone left out there who is willing to invest in self-improvement and knowledge. In this fast time and age, are people willing to reflect and actually devote time into communicating with others in order to make relationships work?

It seems like the majority of people are so engrossed with being self-centered and careless about others. It has come to a point where by a touch of a button, we can remove that person along with its conflict in a matter of seconds.

Shall we rise above ego and keep working on those relationships? I know I’ll try.