The original version of this article was posted on a private blog shared amongst friends in October, 2022. Names have been changed to protect identities.
This short but poignant Ted Talk was given by a man who was on board the plane that successfully landed in the Hudson river upon malfunction on January 15th, 2009. He speaks of the three (there’s always three, right?) things he learned from this experience. The one relevant to this post’s content is the following:
I’ve lived a good life. In my own humanity and mistakes, I’ve tried to get better at everything I tried. But in my humanity, I also allow my ego to get in. And I regretted the time I wasted on things that did not matter with people that matter. And I thought about my relationship with my wife, with my friends, with people. And after, as I reflected on that, I decided to eliminate negative energy from my life. It’s not perfect, but it’s a lot better. I’ve not had a fight with my wife in two years. It feels great. I no longer try to be right; I choose to be happy. (emphasis mine).
Ric Elias
Another quote relevant to this post is from the survival memoir and psychotherapy manual that is Man’s Search for Meaning:
Between stimulus and response there is a space. In that space is our power to choose our response. In our response lies our growth and our freedom.
Viktor E. Frankl
Ok, we now have all we need to get to business. We’ll begin with a very simple scene of two people, one of whom incites a prompt for conflict:
Tom and I are going on a hike. We’ve parked the car. It’s raining lightly. It’s a bit cold. Jerry, Tom’s pup, is inside the car. I open the door absent-mindedly and Jerry lunges to jump out. Tom says, quietly but sharply, “hey, what are you doing!” to me, and frowns as he jerks forward to block Jerry’s exit and get a firm hold of his leash.
This is the stimulus.
The scene could, broadly speaking, go in one of two ways:
Scenario #1: I snap back, expressing hurt in an equally volatile tone, “sorry, I didn’t think, there’s no need to snap!”. I have not empathized with Tom. I have instead escalated a potential stimulus for a conflict into a conflict.
Scenario #2: I pause. I recall how Jerry – who is a dote with humans but a danger to other dogs because he gets scared and aggressive – so seriously injured another dog some years ago, how afraid Tom is that he could do that again, the responsibility that Tom feels for the wellbeing of other dogs at risk, should Jerry be let off-leash, but also for Jerry, who could be put down. I consider the migraines Tom sometimes gets, the tendinitis in his arms from managing Jerry on the leash over the years, his tendency towards hypoglycaemia. I consider all the things I don’t know that could have led up to his less-than-patient response. I say nothing.
This moment, this junction that divides the two possible directions, is the space that Frankl spoke of, in the context of conflict with another person. This is the critical moment that could transform nothing into something, a prompt into a conflict. What you do in these moments can be very consequential indeed.
I opted for the second scenario at the time. I will not claim that it was the perfect one, but I will posit that it was better than Scenario #2. By principle, when faced with a stimulus I try to always opt for some variation of empathizing and deescalating. Tomorrow is not promised and trivial conflict just isn’t worth it. Later in the day (it was a good one), Tom brought up his grumpiness and apologized for it. Tomorrow is not promised and trivial grudges just aren’t worth it. We were coming up on a year together at that point and we’d never had a heated argument. Not because we shelve issues (there exists a story that polyamorous relationships involve more sex, this is a fallacy – they really just involve a lot more communication) – we bring up issues almost every time we meet. But we were both familiar enough with non-violent communication practises, both trusted each other enough to bring anything up, and both willing enough to resolve conflict rather than escalate it. We tried our best to bring up concerns, and we talked them out until we both feel ‘complete’. Sometimes this takes more than one conversation, and that’s fine. Tomorrow is not promised, and letting insecurities rot into resentment just isn’t worth it.
Practise the pause before you respond.
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