Avoiding confrontation
What's the problem here?
I have been thinking a great deal about confrontation lately, specifically, about a cultural acceptance for avoiding it. Many folks twist themselves into absolute knots to avoid doing the quickest and most straightforward action because it feels uncomfortable. To which I’d say: what’s the problem with being uncomfortable? Why not endure a few minutes of awkwardness if it solves a big problem? I don’t mean something high stakes confronting a robber or leaving your spouse for the pool boy or something; I mean like telling your hair stylist you want to start going to someone else, or telling your friend you feel hurt when she’s chronically late to meet you. Talking about it is better than ruminating on the problem over time, right? Surely we trust ourselves enough to handle a conversation and not allow it to turn into a war, right? Today, explore the idea of the day-to-day type of confrontation in your writing. Perhaps you want to go into a person essay, perhaps you want to write about a particular example of productive negotiation that took place in our area of expertise, maybe you want to journal about your own reluctance to deal with any type of confrontation and why and how avoiding it might be helping you play it too safe. Let’s get into that. Let’s go.