James
Armstrong
HCOM 214
Professor
Blake Rodgers
3/4/15
My Feelings Towards Conflict
With regards to my own experiences I have personally
witnessed the majority of the conflict suffuse both the worlds of school and family.
On that note, Conflict for me usually elicits a sour feeling. I would rather
avoid it if possible and have the issue disappear. Therefore I personally
choose to usually apply the avoidance tactic when possible as I would rather
avoid the issue at large and see if I am able to "sweep it under the
rug" so to speak.
For example, when I was a freshmen in high school I would routinely
cut class and this engendered a conflict with the administration. This was
attended by several notifications stating that they would take punitive
measures against me. With my younger frame of mind, I opted to avoid the whole
issue and to just avoid school and thereby avoid the conflict at hand. I found myself routinely staying home and in
this instance at least I only served to exacerbate the issue as I progressively
accumulated more and more cuts which subsequently caused me to rue the idea of
returning to school.
Avoidance, in this case at least, proved to be less than
ideal as it only exacerbated my dilemma and in the end I was forced to compensate
for my cut classes with community service around the school. It was less than
ideal and I found myself feeling frustrated and disappointed in myself for not
engaging the dilemma head on and addressing it in its infancy instead of later
on.\
Another tactic I routinely utilize is that of engaging and
perhaps searching for a compromise in order to allay any negative or inimical
feelings. For example whenever I have
any petty squabbles with my sister whether it be about cleaning around the
house or obligations I tend to gravitate towards a compromise and seek to find
a solution that mutually benefits both of us.
All in all, conflict is something I definitely do not relish.
Yet when confronted with it I believe that a solution can almost always be
reached and that discourse will usually yield said solution. As long as all
parties involved are reasonable and capable of looking past any negative feelings
in order to reach a mutually beneficial solution.
Nice reflective post on your negative feelings about conflict and self-assessment regarding a tendency towards being avoidant, with the interesting example of cutting classes your freshman year. Good that you now realize dialogue, reason and empathy can help both parties find a beneficial solution.
ReplyDelete