Voting with our feet.....

It's Julie day again. Thankfully. I can honestly say there's not a single one of her prompts that I haven't liked, that haven't made me think, even if I chose to not participate that week.

In this case, she prompts a few different scenarios with a "what would you do" undertone.

The different scenarios didn't speak to me but the common thread running through them did.

How do we deal with conflict?

The first thing that comes to mind is that we all deal with situations according to our own conditioning. We are all socialized differently and the way we'd respond to any particular situation depends on how that was modeled for us, what we've done that works and what doesn't. And, of course, our own objective. Do we want to please? How invested are we in resolution?

When it comes to customer service issues, I am rather heartless. If my expectations are not met, I vote with my feet. Chances are I won't verbally confront. I just cancel the service without explanation.

When it comes to social situations, I can be equally heartless. I find it exceedingly difficult to stand by and say nothing when I believe something is wrong or potentially harmful.

Given my personal conditioning, in the past I would simply spit my opinions out like olive pits with little regard for where they land or who they hit. I was blunt. Tactless. I had no particular regard for diplomacy because I lived in a black/white world. If something was wrong, it was to be crushed. If it was right and wholesome, I supported it in an equally strident manner.

But then... we grow up eventually. And in my case, Thailand came along. I began my acculturation process there. My style changed. My values changed.

Both of those things forced me to view it a bit differently. The first consideration is that while I do still confront the things I see as wrong (potentially harmful to me, others, the community, the world), I try to do it with a bit of softness, allow others to save face and still get my message across.

It's all about speaking your truth with kindness. When we see something that's wrong, we don't have to be angry. We can use it as an opportunity to present different values, a different way of doing things - perhaps a way that will benefit everyone.

I've come to believe that the way we do these things is similar to the flow of water. From stream to river to lake to ocean. In the same manner, what we put out flows from self to others to community to nation to world. The way we choose to treat others in our daily lives will ultimately translate to the way a nation treats other nations and has a worldwide effect.

So now I try to stop myself. I've made no secret here how I feel about social networking, inclusion and exclusion. Just this morning while blog-surfing, I saw something that irritated me. In the interest of diplomacy, I won't say what. It was just evidence of cliquishness.

As another minor example, one in which I am not constrained by diplomacy, I was irritated recently by the exclusionary behavior that was on GoodReads where people gathered "friends" and it's put out along with our profiles in numbers. Naturally the purpose of this is to create competition for "friends" and the usual acceptance/snubbing behavior began. Lord of the Flies on a community literary site. Charming.

Because of my old conditioning, I was tempted to simply sign off and forget about it. I really detest that behavior and it does make me angry.

What is wrong with simply enjoying books? Why does it have to become some social nonsense like that, I thought.

This is only about books for me. I am not looking for a bosom buddy. I'm not offering to make casseroles, pay anyone's bills, go to their funeral or have their baby.

It's about books, for crying out loud!

The old me would have simply signed off and disappeared. I would have voted with my feet.

The new me thought about it a bit and decided to let it go. A lot of that kind of behavior is age-dependent. It's also a result of other people's conditioning. I chose to ignore it. Was it a bit of a struggle? Yes. It was. But that's part of growing up on my part and living my culture rather than just mouthing on about it.

In the case of something blatant, I will still say something - kindly - hoping to create change but another part of the process of aging is choosing our battles with a bit more care.

GoodReads was hardly worth it. Day-to-day annoyances are hardly worth it.

Julie's example of exclusion in the case of the birthday party or the dad in the playgroup would have had me speaking up because both of those things do have potentially damaging results in the long term for individuals and communities.

So I guess this is how we choose. How important is it? What would be the potential long term outcome? Is it really harmful to ourselves, to others, to our communities or to the world? Is this based on principle or is it just my ego speaking?

Most things are the latter. I wasn't treated right. I got snubbed. I didn't get what I want. It's not that important. It's important to differentiate between those things that involve truly universal principles and stand up for them and those things that are just our egos running wild, wanting validation.

Stream to river to lake to ocean.

So.. that's my hai dong for the moment. :)

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