I’ve never been one to hold back. If you’re a regular reader that will come as no surprise. If I don’t agree, I’m pretty quick to offer my opinion and if you piss me off, I’ll probably fire something straight back at you. That’s my nature and, when the rubber hits the road, most of us revert to nature.
However, the older I get, the more I understand that, sometimes, it’s best to overcome your nature and keep your gob shut. Avoid making some self-righteous point and save the peace. Swallow your pride and avoid an unnecessary shit fight with someone that’s really important to you.
In any relationship – whether it’s a romantic one or a business one or just a friendship – disagreements occur. Sometimes it’s worth picking a fight over – you’ll probably find some kind of compromise and you’ll both be better for it. Other times, you fight over fundamental differences in values or philosophy. In those cases, it’s less likely that you’ll strike that common ground and there’s always the potential for those disagreements to materially affect the relationship. That’s when you have to seriously consider whether it’s worth pursuing the fight.
You might think that disagreements around values or philosophy are pretty important things to sort out. Well, most of us end up in highly valued relationships in which we don’t have total agreement with the other party in every conceivable area – yet we still consider those relationships to be central to our lives. If we enter into a significant relationship knowing, full well, that we have differences in areas relating to values or philosophy, it’s very unlikely that one party will change to accommodate the other. Arguing or fighting won’t help – if anything, it’ll drive us further apart. And, if the relationship is important to us – and it works – in spite of the differences, there’s zero upside in entering into conflict around the points of difference.
So now, when there’s an opportunity to start, or join, an argument – whether it’s at work or home – I try to mentally determine what kind of fight I’m getting into. If it’s over details, I’ll probably still have a go – like I said, that’s my nature. If it’s over something much deeper, I’m more likely to bite my tongue and count to a million. Life’s too short to get into conflicts that have no chance of resolution. Now, if the other party isn’t really all that important to me……………:)
david chaulk 