Daily Prompt: Conflicted

You’re in the middle of a terrible argument, and everyone turns to you to help resolve it. How do you respond? How do you react to conflict? 

For starters, I’m one of many who steers as far away from conflict as humanly possible, as to not end up in the middle of it. Conflict can be tricky, depending on the subject at hand and whether it’s resolvable.

In the event, however, people come to me for a resolution, I tell them one of two things:

• go to the other party/parties you’re having the conflict with and try to find resolution among themselves
• I can sit with involved parties either separately or together to talk things through, on the condition they shut up and listen to each other

To avoid further conflict, each party should take into consideration the other’s account of the conflict and come up with a compromise, or nothing can be resolved.

In fifth grade (I had to be 10), I took part in, and received certification for, a peer mediation workshop. We were taught how to help resolve conflicts and, after school, we would get appointments to handle real cases of conflict. It seems rather daunting to put counseling responsibilities in the hands of children, but I learned a lot from that time in my life, and have successfully either resolved conflicts or stayed out of them ever since. Before, I was a bull, getting into fights when provoked yet making up afterwards.

I can’t stand to see conflict between mutual friends or family. I definitely do not want to be in the eye of the storm. Especially one that, with the help of consideration and compromise, can be sent out to sea.

Sadly, some people keep conflict going for the sake of the person having initiated it feeling some kind of pain.

Definitely NOT worth the brain cells.