You Have a Choice!

We had an interesting discussion today at "The Lunch Room" regarding student reaction when they feel they have been slighted.

One person shares his experience of being looked at in a disrespectful fashion. He said that his reaction is to say something sarcastic to shake the person off his back. And if the negative treatment continues, he will go and beat that person up.

Paul, the coordinator of the group, then asked a very thought-provoking question: what if the guy you beat up bring back five guys with sticks? "I play soccer, so I guess I can run pretty fast..." was the answer. In other words, this person would choose to flee the scene.

We went out of time, but I actually wanted to share about something that had happened to me:

A good friend of mine once started treating me very differently. He became cold, and when I tried to talk to him, I could tell he was dying to leave the conversation. Sometimes, he would even, knowingly or unknowingly, say something to me that was not nice, to say the least...

So naturally, I felt slighted. But interestingly, I chose to have a talk with this friend of mine. As it turned out, his cruel and cold reaction was because of an earlier incident where he felt betrayed by something I have said and done. It hurt him badly and damaged his faith in me as a friend, hence the distancing between him and me. When I realized that it was me who had wronged him in the first place, I apologized and explained to him what happened... and since then, we have been the best of friends.

You see, I had a choice. When I felt I was being slighted, I could have chosen to fight back. I could be even more mean to my friend to "punish" him for how he was treating me. But that would only reinforce the idea of me betraying his friendship. A good friendship that we had spent years building would be in ruins because of a simple misunderstanding, and who knows what else could have happened as our relationship becomes increasingly strained.

Bottom line is: you have a choice. You can choose to escalate a problem, or you can choose to face the problem, with the good will to resolve it.

What is your choice?