Like most people my age, I've dealt with my fair share of conflict throughout my life. At this point in my life, I desire putting as much conflict to rest as possible.
As I think about conflict throughout my life, I realize that the conflicts I experienced were not as severe as conflict might be. In fact, in my earliest days the conflicts I experienced were very normal developmental events. The first big conflict that I can remember was the conflict I had with my sister about whether to keep the light on or turn it off at bedtime. I liked lights on to draw my dreams in the early bedtime hours while my sister desired lights out for a good night's sleep. In the end we compromised by turning off the big light and allowing a small flashlight that I used for drawing.
As life went on, the conflicts continued to be mostly natural sparring with siblings, my parents, and friends now and then. The greatest conflicts in life related to disagreements about house rules, work expectations, caregiving, and leadership decisions.
Now, I want to put all remaining conflicts mostly to rest. Yes, there will be new conflicts, but with the experience I have now, I hope to mitigate the challenge those conflicts will inevitably bring in the days ahead.
The greatest conflict I experienced recently related to caregiving for my elderly parents. I wasn't prepared for the decisions, emotions, and efforts elder care presented. No one talks a lot about end-of-life care because it's such a draining, tough, emotional, and often heart breaking, chapter of life. The fact that people don't talk or listen a lot about that stage is one reason why I wasn't prepared for the multiple decisions that need to be made and the intricate caregiving that's required. Looking back I realize that what specifically made this conflict so great was the fact that no one is truly prepared for the challenges this caregiving presents and everyone brings a somewhat different mindset, vision, and beliefs to the work at hand. Now, after many years of decision making and caregiving efforts, I'm realizing that no one has the monopoly when it comes to the good work, right vision, and optimal collaboration in this endeavor--we all brought something of value, and we all had deficiencies too--there was no perfect scenario. I've forgiven all and myself for our areas of challenge, and I'm grateful that we did the good that we did individually and together.
As I think more about conflict, one of the big factors that has led to the conflicts I've dealt with is a lack of communication or honest communication. It's the lack of transparency. For example, once as an educator I found out news that greatly altered the program I was delivering to students. I was so proud of that program because it was resulting in positive math growth for my students. When I found out that I was no longer able to use the program without any kind of thoughtful communication, I became very upset. Similarly, in past conflict, when I've expected one path and that path had been replaced without my knowledge, it was upsetting. Good communication would mean that people were brought to the table together to learn of new information that impacted their work or life. In each of these cases, people didn't communicate with me because they knew I wouldn't like the decision, and they went ahead anyways without discussion or at a minimum an announcement of some kind.
That will happen again and again in life. Rather than get upset, I have to learn to cope with those kinds of miscommunication episodes. As in looking back at the biggest conflicts in my life, miscommunication was at the root of the conflict. Onward.
