“First they ignore you. Then they ridicule you. And then they attack you and want to burn you. And then they build monuments to you.”

― Nicholas Klein

I am a conflict avoider by nature. My upbringing, unfortunately, made me one. But, it also made me see the beauty of conflict in my life. Conflict is related to chaos. As we all know chaos is where creativity comes from. Depending on how you think about conflict, it can either build you up or tear you down. The choice is yours.

In 6th grade, a teacher of mine shamed another student in front of the class by slapping him across his right cheek for getting a 0 on his English test. She proceeded to compliment me on my perfect score on the exam as we both stood in front of the class. That little boy was my first “crush”. Needless to say, after the incident, he never spoke to me again.

This incident is a demonstration of resolving conflict by shaming. Shaming is never a useful tool. That little boy never learned English. I was wary of speaking English for a couple of months after that even though I loved the subject.

Conflict is a problem if you make it one

Many people see conflict as a problem. You want to resolve a conflict immediately. You want to meditate. You want to come to a solution. As we know from major conflicts in the world such as (US-China relations, Bipartisanship in US politics, Polarization in our society, etc..), these are not conflicts that will be resolved.

Instead, these conflicts are the start of a learning path for both sides.

Many optimistic people think of conflict as an opportunity. You want to flip the negative script of seeing it as a problem on its head to view it as an opportunity, then you can think of all the ways you can take advantage of this situation.

In truth, many times, this kind of overly optimistic thinking often leads to overly optimistic points of view and an underestimation of what’s to come.

If you have an online troll that’s stalking your account every day and spreading vile online about you while you are doing nothing to hurt this person, you can’t rationalize this act as an opportunity. An opportunity implies that there’s a good outcome. But, you are made infamous by this troll. That’s not the kind of fame that you want.

It’s better to think of conflicts as seeds to learning. These seeds are neutral. They are neither negative or positive. These seeds are scattered around your life so that you can learn about another point of view.

Conflict is a seed for learning

We all want to pride ourselves on the fact that we are open-minded. In truth, from a recent study by the author of Dream Teams, we are over-estimating our open-mindedness all the time. In an assessment, 95% of the population labeled themselves as open-minded. We know that this is not true.

When encountering differences of opinion in unique circumstances, we often act in unexpected ways.

There was a time in my life at work that I had subtle racial bias that I was not aware of. But, because competition in the workplace intensified the bias, I found myself being passive-aggressive and intolerant to people who I should accept. None of this was direct or aggressive. But, I caught my own bias in these situations. I count myself a racially accepting person. Yet, here I am being condescending and arrogant toward my colleague.

Conflict, in this case, helped to humble me in the way that questioned my supposed open-mind. Perhaps, I am not as open-minded as I thought I was. Perhaps, I also need to expand my horizons and be more accepting.

Looking at conflict as the seed for learning detaches you from the immediate emotions of anger, frustration, cognitive dissonance associated with the conflict. Instead, it allows you to focus on the path generated by that conflict: the learning path.

Conflict can be used as a tool

When you read management notes on conflict resolution, management always seems to love conflict. Managers will often incite conflict to solicit responses that make people on the team think about problems in ways they haven’t thought about.

Image from Author

I agree with the above use of conflict. I think using conflict as a tool to create a testing environment is very useful.

In a group of people who you hardly know, it’s always easy to break the ice by asking the group a question and see what the responses are. We have online forums designed to generate social interactions from exactly this: Quora, Q/A bulletin boards, Twitter.

When you see someone actively generating conflict in situations, what is your first thought? Mine is always, what does this person want?

Getting to the heart of the matter to question this person’s intention is the only way to understand the context of the conflict. Why does a person want to solicit such feedback? What is this kind of feedback used for?

Lawyers often question intention. Intention and motivation is at the heart of many social justice issues. Figuring out the intention and motivation of why a person wants to generate certain conflicts can allow you to look more at the root cause of the issue.

Conflict may be simply a facade for the deeper questions that need to be asked. What does this person gain by causing drama or conflict?

Internal conflict is the source of self-reflections

One of the greatest strengths in a person with tremendous self-awareness is the ability to self reflect. Self-reflection always comes from a source of internal conflict. Internal conflict often comes from cognitive dissonance generated by scrutinizing all sides of an issue.

Image from Author

When you struggle with yourself, the tendency is to solve your internal conflict immediately.

However, what happens when you live with your internal conflict by constantly reflecting on it throughout your days?

The greatest result of meditation is to open one’s mind. If you look at the process of meditation, you will realize that it allows you to live with internal conflict.

detaching thoughts from one’s self by observing one’s thoughts without reaction

relaxing into one’s self while observing one’s thoughts

By living with your internal conflict, you can self-reflect on it as situations change. You can revise your thoughts on the subjects as your internal conflict grows.

Often, self-reflection can lead to over-thinking. But, when you meditate, then self-reflect, you will stop your thinking just as ideas are generated. You won’t lean in to the emotions that push you into the over-thinking territory.

Conflict doesn’t always have a happy ending

Conflict only has a happy ending if you force it to have a happy ending. Many times, you will find conflict bubbling away underneath the surface as a semi-active volcano. It’s simply brewing all the time.

“There is no real ending. It’s just the place where you stop the story.”

― Frank Herbert

I love this quote by Frank Herbert. When you want happy endings, ask yourself, is it at all possible? When you force an outcome (good or bad), you may simply want an answer that is not there.

When you ask “What-if” questions, your intention is really to see if you can “regret” an outcome.

When you ask “Why-me” questions, your intention is really to solicit “pitty” for yourself.

When you ask “How-come” questions, your intention is really to bend “reality” toward your point of view.

No, I’m sorry, but not all conflict has an ending. Too bad, you will just have to sit with this one for some time to come.