CONFLICT KEEPS THINGS INTERESTING

Last week I and my sisters were watching binge watching the latest season of a really sleazy reality show on a local channel and I won’t lie, the highlight of every episode for me was the smack downs. I am not ashamed to admit it. I lived for the cat-fights, shouting matches and brawls.

I mean, why bother pretending you had any lofty goals when you went in. You knew for sure what you were getting into by watching. This is how I see it. If I’m going to watch a sleazy show, I want sleaze. Copious amounts of it. It’s what I paid for. But that’s not the point of this blog.

In quick retrospect, I note, unsurprisingly, that the entire show was hinged on the conflict between the characters. And it got me thinking. Conflict is what was keeping the whole thing afloat.  Not the meagre cringe worthy script steeped in cheese and fakeness. Not the realistic-ness (is that a word?) of the characters or their relatability or lovable-ness. No, it was the disagreements, deliberate misunderstandings, pettiness and WWE type smack downs. It was shameful, yet strangely satisfying to watch, for the viewer who’s not ashamed to admit why they kept watching.

But that’s one type of conflict. The way I see it, there’s many types of conflict. Not all of them are hostile. It’s just the hostile type is the most common. But conflict can take many forms. People are different. And naturally because of this, their interests will be different. When you like or want something and another person likes or wants something else, then there arises what we commonly hear called, a conflict of interest.

But this doesn’t always mean that you will hate each other or fight each other. It doesn’t mean that you are bad people.

But I think that it’s this conflict that makes life so interesting. I mean yes, what brings people together I what they have in common, but I think what keeps things moving is the differences. Don’t get me wrong, homogeneity in most environments is a strength. But looking at it critically, just because you all do the same things doesn’t mean you are friends or even like each other i.e. the workplace. What puts color in your world is most likely those people in your life who live in entirely different circumstances from you.

It breaks monotony. It keeps things interesting. Heck! Even the people in your life that you don’t like are probably that to you because you are different from each other in a way that grates on each other’s nerves. But this too is a different kind of interesting conflict. And all of these conflicts come together to create the rollercoaster that is life.

Where am I going with this? I think most of the conflict in our lives is influenced and affects us according to how we decide to deal with it. Take for instance the case study show above. A lot of the drama that transpired in it was due to, yes, sheer mean-spiritedness, but also to petty and, like I said, deliberate misunderstandings.

These women were not illiterate or incapable of communicating. Heck! They communicated too much!  Goodness knows every one of them had a mouth on her.

There was this particular one that was just the condensation of conflict. She like a thunderstorm. When she blew in with her opinions, heckles would start to rise, in an instant. I hope I never meet or anyone like her, to be frank.  Oh, the drama!

But my point is, these women never got along because they decided to take a hostile approach to EVERYTHING. Even the ones that tried to stay calm where pulled into the vortex by force. It was literally eat or be eaten type situation. Fight and be unreasonable if you want to survive was the order of the day.

I don’t know about anyone else, but I felt that was a very destructive environment for anybody. That’s just me though. Because we are different, I’m sure there is a person out there that feels sick if they haven’t hacked or been hacked verbally to death by someone. Human nature is interesting like that.

So which are you? Do you live for the drama, like the women in the show, or are you like me, who prefers to watch with glee from the sidelines, and avoid the actual confrontation? Are you a player, or a watcher?

Hahaha, have a nice weekend guys and see you next post!!! 🙂