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Sunday, October 9, 2011

THOUGHTS: The Line Between Peaceful Resignation and Defiance

My whole life, for the most part, has lent my confrontational abilities to be quiet, contemplative, and secure. I've convinced myself that doing so makes me the better person, stronger for having the maturity to not instigate or fight back. This has done volumes in serving me well to a degree. Situations tha could have become fights, brawls, friendship-ending knock-down, drag-out battles rooted in misunderstandings and miscommunications have been calmly placed on a back-burner, while the real issues have been addressed with resolve.

The caveat to this train of thought is that in doing so, one could constue the actions here as avoidance, cowardice, and pensievity. The truth is, in certain situations, this assessment is true. There are times when the truth must be sought through the heat of battle, when it cannot be obtained by taking the road around such infernos of emotions. These are times when that fine line between deciphering which road is the higher one is almost impossible to see.

Erring on the side of caution is a wonderful idea, but I have to question it. If one is to always err on the side of caution, are they not liable to err too much, to err themselves into a complacency where the risk involved with standing up to an issue has the potential to reward you even more?

Next time you're in a situation where you feel like youe more noble for sitting it out, for thinking about it and returning with a response when the seas have calmed a bit, consider this: you may be adding fuel to a fire by refusing to jump into that fire and plug the leak. Sometimes we have to immerse ourself in our conflicts to really address and correct them, and there is nothing less noble by taking this path.