Why Bother?

Have you ever found yourself avoiding an important topic because you fear how the conversation may go? This is something that I struggle with from time to time and I always feel a twinge of inauthenticity whenever I avoid a difficult conversation. Why then, do I often choose to avoid the conversation even though I know I’ll feel bad for having done so?

Most people, myself included, prefer to avoid conflict. We instinctively avoid topics of discussion where we’re likely to encounter opposing opinions and perspectives. We prefer to stay on safe ground. We talk about the weather. We talk about what we did last weekend. We talk about sports. The other stuff can get messy. Why bother getting into that? 

Messy is all that matters.

Life gets boring when we all agree on everything. The sky is blue. The Earth is flat. Dinner is at 7. These are facts, objectively observed and identically recorded by all parties. Although conversations around these topics can be perfectly pleasant, they don’t do much by way of deepening the connection between people.

Paradoxically, connection doesn’t come from our similarities. Rather, deep connection comes from our differences and our dealing with them. By learning that we are not identical to the people around us and skillfully feeling our way through those differences, we truly discover ourselves. If we only discuss topics where we completely align and agree, we will never truly know each other and, most importantly, we will fail to know ourselves.

Why do we avoid conflict?  

We avoid what we fear. Most of us lack confidence in our ability to engage skillfully in difficult conversations. We fear that we will lose our cool or that we will fail to make our points well. We worry that we’re not up to the task of representing our authentic selves. It sounds quite honorable, when you say it that way, right? But wait. There’s a darker side.

Although we lack confidence in our own skill, we also lack confidence in our conversational counterparts. We don’t trust the resiliency of the relationship and we worry that we’ll do irreparable damage. It’s heartbreaking. We should trust each other more. We should trust ourselves more.

What does it take to be skillful?  

There’s a reason why our trust is low when it comes to engaging in conflict-conversations. Each of us has lots of experience with these conversations going badly! We know, deep down, that some people are easily triggered and close-minded to boot. (Other people. Not us, of course!). We have reason to doubt our counterpart’s conversational skills.

Ultimately, we cannot worry about them. This is not to say that we should be completely insensitive, running rough-shot over everyone in our way. Quite the contrary. Because we cannot guarantee the skill level of our conversation partner and because we are committed to preserving the relationship, the burden falls upon us to exercise controlled engagement.  

This phenomenon is common in the martial arts, when a more senior student works with a junior. It is up to the senior student to ensure the safety of the interaction because only the senior student has the skills required. To exercise controlled engagement, we need three things: Confidence, Curiosity, and Compassion.

Confidence

The challenge of difficult conversations always comes down to our deeply engrained commitment to our own perspective and our own truth. We hope that we can bring others over to our truth and we feel threatened when we can’t. On some level, if we can’t convince others of our truth, it threatens our very identity. This is, of course, an illusion. There is no existential threat.

We need to realize that our truth remains intact even when the people around us have their own truth. The black belt doesn’t worry about their identity when sparring with the white belt because they’ve earned their black belt. You’ve earned your belt, whatever color it is. You are not your position or your argument. Once you realize this, you are free to engage in conversational sparring with the knowledge that you are safe.

Curiosity and Compassion

Once you are comfortable with your own safety, you can turn your energy towards ensuring the safety of your conversational partner. Remember, you can’t control how they show up to the discussion, only how you show up. I recommend you show up with curiosity and compassion.

Curiosity means that you are genuinely interested in deeply understanding the other person’s perspective. Why do they hold the position they do? What does the world look like from where they stand? What is their truth? This is an endless source of entertainment. Genuine curiosity never gets old. The challenge of curiosity is that it requires non-attachment to your own position and perspective. If you are too busy clinging to your own truth it will override your curiosity and you’ll focus on trying to convince the other person. Curiosity is grounded in self-confidence because your position doesn’t matter when you’re curious. In fact, your position is an obstacle to curiosity that you need to be able to put aside for a spell.

Compassion mean that you demonstrate a concern for the safety and suffering of the other person. Here is an interesting thing about compassion.  It is only possible when we see ourselves as different and distinct from the other person and we view our own position as superior. Think about it. We don’t feel compassion for people who are better off than we are. We feel compassion when we have the higher ground.

Compassion is your fallback when you’ve run out of curiosity. You’ve done your very best to be curious and you now have full visibility into the other person’s pain. The other person may not even know they are in pain. You don’t feel in conflict with the other person, because compassion can’t co-exist with conflict. If are still trying to convince the other person that your truth is best, you won’t be in a place to exercise compassion. To exercise compassion, you must surrender yourself to the notion that you cannot change the other person in this moment. It is not your responsibility to change them. You may be able to influence them to some extent, but you don’t get to determine the extent of that influence. You simply get to be you and the other person gets to be them. Your only responsibility is to be gentle.

Why Bother?

 And now, back to the original question...Why bother engaging in difficult, messy conversations? The answer is simple. Discovering our differences and then skillfully navigating them is the only way that we get closer and more connected.