Avoiding Conflict

Today’s quote from A Million Miles in a Thousand Years, by Donald Miller:

…I realized how much of our lives are spent trying to avoid conflict. Half the commercials we see on television are selling us something that will make life easier. Part of me wonders if our stories aren’t being stolen by the easy life.

I am a conflict avoider. No doubt about it. In every situation, I would rather die than experience conflict. Don’t know if it’s an overly implemented middle child syndrome or what, but I do not like conflict. I like it best when the world is at peace and everyone gets along and things are easy and life is good.

That being said, I would tend to agree with Miller’s thought here about my story being stolen by the easy life. I think that because I try to avoid conflict at all cost, it means I also avoid risk, too. Which, as I’ve talked about a lot in this blog, is what I’m trying to change.

A perfect, yet small, example just happened this evening. I don’t like the rain, and if you know me very well, you know I’m not the biggest fan of our dog, Rico. (see pics on the best mom blog ever) I know, once you see the pics, you’ll wonder why I don’t like him, but I have my reasons and won’t go into that here! Anyway, add together RAIN and RICO and it’s not my choice for a time to go out for a walk! It would be cold and wet, ie. conflict! So, Anne took him for a walk.

Another small example was a work situation today. I love about 97% of my work designing affordable content management system websites and implementing effective search engine optimization campaigns for my clients. But, that other 3% includes little things that I’d don’t so much enjoy, but I know has to be done for the job. So, today I had to do one of those things that fall into this 3% category. I originally placed it first on my list this morning; but as I got the day kicked off, I rearranged my schedule to do a few other things first. Those few other things turned into several other things that I had on the list for the day; and suddenly, it was 1:30! Ultimately, I got it done, but I put it off as long as I could – I avoided the conflict of the harder work until the absolute last minute.

These are minor examples of the bigger picture of conflict avoidance in my life. But, just like admitting an addiction is the first step to recovery, recognizing that this is something I need to work on will hopefully drive me to change things. And, in turn, I’ll see a difference in my life (and those around me) when I stop letting the “easy life” steal part of my story.