Conflict and Connection

We all have a way of looking at life and assessing what it has value to us. Whether we are aware of it or not, our value system is based on very specific conclusions we’ve drawn from experiences we’ve had, and those conclusions are operating unconsciously in our mind, and determine what value we look for, and what things we avoid. There is the Christmas effect, where when we are young it is easy to get excited for Christmas, and then slowly over time, Christmas brings a bigger to-do list that stresses us out, than things that excite us. We likely started off life with an optimistic value system, and then as we notice how those expectations fail us, we replace them with a more pessimistic assessment or value system. Our original value system was naïvely optimistic, but that doesn’t mean that there can’t be a wise optimistic value system. We could have upgraded our original naively optimistic value system, but we assess any new value system by our old one, and what reason would w...

The hallmark of OCD is an action that promises release from a strain. This can manifest in a broad range of “compulsions” that offer a “release”—ranging from the compulsion to steal, to the compulsion to give, but usually involves something to clean or organize. A mental disorder is only a disorder when it affects your ability to function to a clinically significant level, which applies to very few people, but… since it affects the quality of life for pretty much all of us, it is important to understand the root of it. The question of how well we see, could be answered by a measurement like 20/20. This means that what you see at 20 feet is the same as the average person… in determining what letter is on a paper. Anything more complicated than what is on the eye chart, E, F, P, T,O,Z etc, is definitely not going to be the same as the average person, and not like anyone else in the world. This is because we see mostly just what we know to look for, and what we know to look for is d...

Yes, eight seconds is a long time, and no, I am not recommending giving everyone an eight second hug. The shell we put up, or mask we hide behind is made up of what we think logically think will keep us emotionally safe. Intuition is not fooled by shells or masks, intuition which is non-verbal communication bypasses whatever façade we put up. Intuition sees the world of meaning, not the physical world of logic, because of this intuition can by-pass externals. Though heart-to-heart connection is what we want, because intuition works so fast and so well, even a glimpse into someone’s heart can show a lot. This makes us feel vulnerable, because we can’t hide out hopes and fears from being seen from other people’s intuition. We may not remember the last time we felt an overwhelming feeling of belonging, but likely it was when we were the most vulnerable; like being held as a newly born infant, not aware that we were naked, and nothing we could do about it even if we did know, being...

I was somewhere that I knew I would have to be for a while, and started to get hungry. I finally decided that the over-priced under-nourishing who knows how old it was item was worth the $2.50, only to have the machine take the money, and not drop the item. It is that point when my mind started racing through all the things I could have done with those $2.50. There was no way to logically rationalize why I should be okay with it, and no meaningful rationalization that would satisfy either. Knowing I wasn’t willing to throw down another couple bucks in hope of getting something else, or making them both fall down, and knowing I didn’t want to spend the night in jail or pay a fine for breaking the machine, I just decided to solve my hunger problem was hopeless. The philosopher Kenny Rogers, in his treatise on the nature of life said, “You've got to know when to hold 'em, know when to fold 'em, know when to walk away, and know when to run. You never count your money, wh...

When it was time for bed, as I got to the doorway of my room and after staring intently to see if anything was moving under my bed, I took a few steps back to get a running start and jumped to my bed without touching the carpet. This wasn’t the lava monsters game, this was the result of my sister wanting to watch the old TV “Are you Afraid of the Dark,” and my mind not being able to comprehend the impossibility of actual monsters lurking under my bed waiting to pull me under. The long-jump was a consistent part of my bedtime routine for quite a long time… I remember thinking that the odds of something pulling me under was low, but that the cost of taking the precaution against it was also low, and so I might as well pay the small price and be safe, right? I wasn’t scared of the area beside my bed during the day, I could be found there with my Legos spread all over the floor on a regular basis, but as soon as it was dark, everything seemed to change. In the light I could see clear...

Suicide To say, “suicide is not the answer,” implies that there is only one question, “to live or not to live?” Why do we jump to the answer without knowing exactly what the question is? Albert Einstein said, “If I had an hour to solve a problem and my life depended on the solution, I would spend the first 55 minutes determining the proper question to ask… for once I know the proper question, I could solve the problem in less than five minutes.” If there really were only one question, it would not be whether or not to live, but what is means to live. If what is meant by living is breathing, and if what life means is suffering, sickness, and old age, then what would be the point? In his book Confessions , Leo Tolstoy, the great nineteenth century Russian writer said, “The only absolute knowledge attainable by man is that life is meaningless.” He confesses, “I did not myself know what I wanted: I feared life, desired to escape from it, yet still hoped something of it.” “My ...

List, or number in order of importance, the three attributes you feel are the worst, the ones you avoid the most because they have no or few redeeming qualities to them. Also, circle or number in order the three least bad attributes or ones you see some redeeming quality in: Exploitation (taking advantage) Obligation (guilting) Intolerance Fake or Unkind Rage Provoking Pity Complaining Leeching Fanaticism Pride Bartering (loving with strings attached) Relentlessness (bothersome) Competitiveness Skepticism Manipulation Intrusiveness(nosey) Plagiarism(uncreative) Exclusion(cliquey) Deceit Ego inflation Dogmatization (ideological thinking) (Answers on conflictandconnection.com)  Even without knowing the exact meaning I attribute to each word, it is unlikely that your results will be skewed. This is because it is usually not just a single word that triggers us, but everything that surrounds that idea. Likely we can think o...