The perfect blend of conflict
Have you ever wondered why some people seem to keep quarrelling? Do you know of any couples, families or even close friends who have drifted apart of broken up because of a series of quarrels? Take a look around you and look at how many people are fighting, these numbers are on the rise in Singapore, just because they don’t see eye to eye. However, have you for a moment ever wondered why people quarrel? Why people who seem to care so much for each other still seem to be able to love/hate each other? Here’s a simple explanation why. Read on only if you want to find out how not to quarrel with your loved ones again.
Different people have live their lives through the eyes of different lenses. Some of them may be family orientated, others may centre their lives around money, goals, their spouse, church or religion, or even their children. What this means is that people react very differently when faced with a similar problem. This also means that because of the different orientations or different centres in their lives, people tend to end up quarrelling just because the other does not seem to have the same values!
Let’s take an example of a loving couple. They both come to a decision to go to the movies, so the wife takes the initiative to book the tickets. However, later in the day, the husband’s boss tells him that because of the busy season, he has to stay in the office to work overtime. Now, if the husband were career or money orientated, he would probably call his wife up and tells her his situation and at the same time, expect her to understand. However, if he lived his life around his spouse, meaning to say that his wife overruled the job, then he would definitely tell his boss no. Seems like everything sounds great so far! Let’s carry on and see what happens if we put the wife into the picture.
If you put yourself in the shoes of the wife, who happened to be someone who valued having fun over her career, what do you think you’d feel if your husband blew you off at the last moment, especially if the both of you had already been planing this date for awhile now? Likewise if you were a career-minded woman who only constantly thought about making money, what do you think you’d feel if you found out that your husband told his boss no?
While the above scenario seems somewhat mild, it is interesting to note the possibilities if we carried this mindset to more serious matters!
What I hope I’ve managed to do with this simple post is this. Every person leads his life through a different lens. It is rarely possible to expect the other person to fully understand what you want. If you wish to lead a life with as little squabbles as possible, what you need to do is to look out for the other person’s values. This is a common technique in NLP. If you manage to find out his values in life, you will be able to understand him better and ultimately, you will be able to understand why he does certain things!
