ON CONFLICT

I read The People of Sparks by Jeanne Duprau yesterday. For those unfamiliar, it is the sequel to The City of Ember (which was recently made into a movie, which is why I read it in the first place) and deals with people struggling to adapt to a new way of life while dealing with finite resources. This struggle eventually boils over into a fairly serious conflict (although it is a young adult book).

The book is pretty obvious in its exploration of the nature of conflict. War is bad, but avoiding conflicts is also bad in a different way, etc. I think that I personally tend to avoid conflict by attempting to resolve it (with varying amounts of success). I feel that I know a lot of people who thrive on conflict - people on campus use "belligerent" as a synonym for "drunk" - in other areas they do not mean the same, but we have a lot of angry drunks at this school - but I do not enjoy conflict.

I used to be terrified of conflict and confrontation. As an RA, my heart would pound every time I had to deal with loud residents; that has become so old hat to me that I don't even really think about it anymore. Occasionally, my blood will get up and I will confront people, but it's certainly a rare thing for me to have heart-pounding conflicts these days.

So this made me question myself - do I avoid conflicts? I think that I do, but not necessarily because I am afraid of the results. I just feel like the results are not worth the hassle of the conflict. For example, if there is one parking place close to the mall, and I see it at the same time (or even before) someone else, but they want it, I would probably let them have it, because I don't mind the walk from a further parking space. Does that make me a coward? Sure, I could get out of my car and yell at the person, but what does that solve? Their day is ruined, my day is ruined, and still - only one of us can get the parking spot.

I know that I occasionally can be perceived as a chump for feeling and acting this way, but ultimately, I'm trying to put others' needs in front of mine. It's entirely possible that I do this too often and so deprive myself of some good things, but so what? I already have a lot of good things, so why hog them all? Why not SHARE the storehouse of food between the people of Sparks and the people from Ember? Granted, the book wouldn't have been written, but still...