Conflict Wimp

I’m no good when it comes to conflict. I can’t help it. I’m a “Let’s all be happy” wimpy sort of person. Always have been. I’m a really bad fighter. I can only work up a decent level of anger about once every ten years. But I wouldn’t be honest if I didn’t admit that once in great while, I have wound up and really let someone have it. Big-time. Always with good reason, of course.

I think there are people in this world who are invigorated by conflict. Who thrive on it. Who need a good argument now and then to feel truly alive. There’s ample evidence of this. Just check out the news; local, national or international. People get their tails in a spin over some of the craziest things that aren’t ever going to matter in the great wide scheme of things.

This week conflict sought me out. I didn’t go looking for it. First I was asked, as a member of the press, to please not attend a public community meeting because, in the words of the caller who requested me to stay away, “Many of the people are angry and might say things they will regret and we wouldn’t want you to hear them.”

Much as I wished I could, I did not meekly say, “Okay. Whatever you say. I won’t come.”  Instead I promised to show up. Then the caller indicated the meeting might be cancelled. “Good,” I said.

The meeting has been rescheduled. I will be there to take down the facts. To record what is said by both sides and to hope that those who speak do so after, not before, thinking about what they wish to say.

Two days later a young friend of mine received a scorching, hateful written communication from someone she likes, respects and appreciates. Devastated, she  asked me what she should do. “Sleep on it,” I suggested. “Then ask to meet and talk.”

No go. “I don’t know what there is to talk about,” the writer replied. A hard and painful lesson learned.

I’m going to avoid the news media for a while. There seems to be more than enough conflict to go around and an incessant need to keep talking about it over and over.

Instead, I’m heading out the door for a run, to get out in this cold, drizzly spring weather. It bites a little but it doesn’t argue.