Tolerance may reduce conflict

Today, people would do anything to defend their own point of view. Their individual opinion. Personal opinions are good because they maintain individuality amongst us, but at the same time they also tend to manage to find a way of dividing us, at which point we start harbouring bad energy against each other. As much as they contribute to diversity, individual opinions, especially if fought for with tooth and nail, can make us feel sidelined if not accepted, or at least acknowledged by others.

There are times when one has to fight for the right of their opinion, and when one has to let it go. At best, let the grey area be the common opinion. We have to learn to allow compromise to prevail, especially in situations where opinions clash with the potential to ignite personal or commune conflicts. What that means is that when engaged in personal or commune fights over whose opinion must go forward, we must teach ourselves to see the line at which the need to be more tolerable and less defensive starts.

In many relationships, it's often the respectable and non-aggressive individual opinions which lead to cracks that may start conflicts. Especially when both parties refuse to be content with tolerance, whilst busy fighting for 'my way' under the disguise of the 'the right way'. In that situation, try pulling back, being less defensive and in fact, tolerable and see what may happen.

The wise are those who accommodate the ideas and views of the others - and those who do not engage in costly personal wars motivated by egos.

Of course, there're times when one has to go over the nile to protect their opinion, even if it meant with their last breath. This situations, in my own 'personal opinion' - which I'm not going to defend - is that they are very rare. At most, when you become less defensive, the other party sees no point in fighting a person who isn't fighting or defending themselves for that matter. Think of the non-arms engagements of Mahtma Gandhi and Dr Martin Luther King Jr., they demonstrated more love and tolerance of their 'enemy' than picking up destructive arms.

How about being known for fighting for your opinion and defending it rarely, meaning other people understand that the only time you fight for it is because you know dead sure your opinion is for the general good of everyone and the only 'known' solution to a problem! I must try that the next time I'm in a deadlock-confrontation.

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