How to deal with opposition

Day 1,327, 07:11 • Published in Poland USA • by Grimstone

Internal conflict:
I know, I know – it’s hard to believe that anyone could possibly disagree with your infinite wisdom, but trust me, it will happen.

It is how you deal with that opposition, however, that will determine whether or not the outcome of that disagreement causes negativity in your life and in the lives of people around you.

Choice #1: Stand Your Ground

This is the “default” reaction for most people. After all, if you didn’t believe in your point of view, you would have never voiced it to begin with, right?
Or, even if you spoke out of turn and said something that you shouldn’t have, now your pride is on the line, and no one wants to look like an idiot by publicly removing their foot from their mouth.

Advantages: The biggest benefit to standing your ground is that you get to be right all the time. Go, you! Don’t forget to pick up your prize for being an insufferable know it all on the way out the door…

Disadvantages: Everyone involved in any given disagreement has just as strong of an opinion as you do. If you firmly refuse to concede that you might have been wrong or unclear in your delivery, then you will alienate people one at a time until the only friends you have left are also insufferable know it all’s…

Choice #2: Concede Defeat

Depending on who you ask, this is either the coward’s way out, or the wise man’s way out. However, in either case, you have to say those magical words that no one likes to say, but everyone loves to hear:“I’m sorry. You were right and I was wrong.”

Ouch! That hurts just reading it, doesn’t it? However, being willing to take that pie in the face does have its benefits.

Advantages: You will likely make friends much more quickly than the aforementioned insufferable know it all. After all, everyone likes to hang around with people who continually tell them how right they are.

Disadvantages: You run the risk of losing any real credibility by continually admitting that you are wrong. If you keep saying or doing things, but then quickly admitting that you shouldn’t have said or done them, people will stop paying attention when you say or do anything. Except, of course, for the friends that you gain by continually telling them that they are right!

Choice #3: Compromise

Ah yes, the big “C” word that has the power to produce almost magical results in all manner of interpersonal relationships. Can it be applied to disagreements, however? After all, doesn’t one person always have to be “right” so the other person can be “wrong”?

Well, first of all, even using the stark concepts of right and wrong is…uh…wrong to begin with. Life is always about the point of view of the observer. The way that someone else sees any given situation is all but irrelevant compared to the observer’s point of view.

So, the key to a proper compromise that will keep the peace without turning you into a know it all or a “yes man” is to simply agree to respect the other person’s opinion.

I know, right? You were waiting for some grand Freudian revelation about how to magically manifest success in the face of adversity, and I come up with nothing more meaty than respecting someone’s opinion??

Well, the bottom line is that respect is all most people are after. Sure, everyone likes to be “right” and everyone likes to be considered an authority on any given topic. However, at the core of our being, people simply want to be respected. If someone tells me something is black when I know it to be white, I’ll say that it must look black from where they are standing, and thank them very much for offering that different point of view.

If someone tells me something is cold when I know it to be hot, I’ll ask them how I can heat it up or cool it down so that they can get the most out of whatever it is that we are talking about. If someone tells me that I’m an idiot when I know that I’m not, I’ll thank them for their point of view and then go ahead and do what I was going to do anyway. After all, whatever I’m about to do will either turn out okay, or I’ll prove that person right. Either way, I still get to do what I originally wanted to do anyway.

Bottom line to all of this?

I don’t personally think that opposition really “exists” in the world. Much like the vaunted emotional reaction “stress,” opposition is nothing more than our own reaction to any given set of circumstances. Since we are the only person who can control our reaction, that pretty much puts us in the driver’s seat during every situation doesn’t it?

Life is just cool like that!