DailyJim: I believe conflict avoidance leads to poverty

Hello everyone, welcome to another Daily Gym. Today is Wednesday, October 30th, 2024, and I hope you can hear me, I'm in the airport. What I want to talk about today is.

How I believe conflict avoidance leads to poverty.

So, I was in the store earlier today because I am traveling back to Kenya, and I was in the U.S. And I was going shopping because there are a lot of things that you can buy here that are cheaper and just more options. And so I was in the store looking for some things and I just thought, wow, we seem to have a product to solve almost every problem. Okay, not every problem, right? Because I'm annoyed with this idea that COVID's still around because we haven't solved indoor air quality problems. But we seem to come up with a lot of solutions to solve a lot of problems and resolve a lot of conflicts for people and i was thinking maybe that's the essence of poverty is that being in a place where people don't resolve a lot of the conflicts but rather avoid them pretend that they don't exist and if you think about like um places that maybe avoid the conflict or just don't resolve them like the extreme examples are war. I mean, this is like conflict has gotten so bad that people are literally killing each other over it. It means that the conflict has escalated to such a level, People don't think it can be resolved with a conversation or with something smaller.

And while not every place is at war, I do think that in some countries, some cultures, in some communities, there can be a lot of unresolved conflict where people don't communicate what's going on. People just avoid it and pretend that there's no conflict. And the conflict eventually bubbles up and bubbles up. I remember running a conflict resolution project in Europe. up actually I'm wearing the shirt right now make music not war and one of the participants said, he realized that if we don't express how we're feeling eventually it can come out in very violent ways and so conflict avoidance emotional avoidance I think can really bubble up to the point where we have to start paying attention and at that point it can be really loud it can be really violent.

And so, yeah, you know, I was working on a team with Americans the other day for this Keyboards for Kamala, and it amazes me how punctual people are and how people seem to resolve conflicts really well, really well, compared to some of maybe other teams I've worked on in other countries. It's like, if the meeting starts at 10.45, it starts at 10.45, it ends at 11.15, it ends at 11.15, and we've covered everything we needed to cover, and it's done. I'm like, wow, my goodness. So that means I can go on to my next meeting, and I don't have a conflict from the previous one that is delaying my second one, causing another conflict, and then pretending like there's no conflict, and then it escalates and perpetuates.

So, yeah, I just, I wonder if really resolving conflict, paying attention to conflict and resolving it, is what brings communities or countries or whatnot to a wealthier level. And not just wealth in terms of monetary wealth, but wealth and health and infrastructure and so many things.

I was even thinking, you know, a lot of people will rag on me for, not rag on me, like, attack me, I would say, for saying that I want to ask people for money, saying that, oh, you can't ask people to give you money, that's morally wrong, et cetera, et cetera. And I was thinking, it's like, if someone has a problem that they need to solve, should I come up to them and say, I'm only going to solve your problem if you solve one of my problems? Seems kind of weird. because what it says there is that I don't actually see their problem as my problem. Their problem is separate from me. It doesn't actually matter to me. So whether they resolve it or not, I don't really care. But I think when I get, when I or when we get much better at resolving conflict, we actually see, we start to see a lot of other people's problems as our own problems as well. Now some might say, oh, that's codependent or some other term that I often think is bullshit. But yeah i don't think we have to see everyone else's problems as our own but have care and compassion for the person at least want to not say almost like well i'm only going to help you if you help me it sounds really i don't know sounds really unloving and it just makes it really hard to resolve conflict because if a conflict if to resolve my conflict i have to help you with your conflict? That takes energy and resources away from me solving my conflict. Why would I have to help you with your conflict in the moment? Why can't we be on the same team fighting against the same conflict trying to resolve the.

So I think that's where, I mean, it's a little thing. You know, my family friends dropped me off at the airport today and gave me some snacks, and she had baked some brownies. I was like, oh, that's so sweet. And I thought about it. It's like maybe in her mind she's like, okay, he's going to be hungry. Maybe he wants a snack on the plane that's not just plain food. Here, you know, I already baked these brownies. Here, he can have a few brownies. Who knows? Or maybe she baked them specifically for this. I doubt it. But even if she did, if she did, I'd be blown away. But that takes a certain awareness of other people's conflicts and almost a certain identification with other people's conflicts that we're on the same team and this is our conflict, it's not your conflict it's our conflict this is not your problem, it's our problem and how do we resolve it together and so. I think, yeah I just think, I don't like saying I'm going to solve your problem only if you solve my problem in the moment And if you don't solve it, if you don't solve a big enough problem of mine, then I'm not going to help you. Why would I help you? And I think that's my reticence. That's my kind of disgust in some ways about the exchange model or the transactional model of doing business. And it's not to say that, okay, that's better than stealing from each other and completely ignoring the other person's problem and saying, I don't care about your problem at all. I only care about my problem. And so I'm going to steal something from you. I don't care if it causes you more problems, because for me, my problem is the most urgent. It's the highest priority. So I'd say the transactional equal exchange model is better than that, because at least it's aware that, okay, the other person has a problem, and I want to help their problem, but only if they help me with my problem. There still is... So at least in that, there's awareness of two problems or two conflicts going on, Whereas in the first one, it's only awareness of one's own conflict. But I think the third option is to be aware of the conflict and recognize that the conflict, the problem is shared. This is not your problem and your problem alone to solve. I'm here to help you solve it. And when I have a problem and when I have a conflict, I am not alone in solving it.

And a conflict doesn't have to be. I'm always in a bad situation. A conflict can be a dream. Maybe I'm working a normal job because, you know, that's how everyone's supposed to do it. But I have a dream to do something else. And that's a conflict. It's a problem because I really want to do this dream, but I don't have the resources or the time or the connections or the money or the whatever to do the dream.

If people see it as my problem and my conflict and not related to theirs, then maybe, yeah, they're going to be like, well, I want to help you with your problem. Well, if you see it as my problem alone, then yeah, maybe you won't help me. But if you care about me a lot or you think that what I'm working on can really help you too, it's a problem that you're trying to resolve or you think society is trying to resolve, then we're on the same team.

So, yeah, just really reflecting on that today before I board this flight. Um, just how, yeah, I think the epitome, like, the top level of resolving conflict is seeing our conflict, seeing my conflict as, like, our conflict and seeing other people's conflict as our conflict.

And dancing between the two. Wanting to help you, but not wanting to sacrifice myself too much.

But also wanting you to help me but not to sacrifice yourself too much because we have a multitude of conflicts that are happening all the time, and yeah, I just don't really like if you could help me with a conflict and you say, well, I'm only going to help you if you help me in this immediate moment at this level of conflict like, okay, so you don't really want to help me solve my conflict do you um you don't see it as a mutual problem got it um but vice versa too, and so that's probably why i want to run out of money or run out of resources because i see a lot of people's conflicts and problems as shared conflicts and problems i see them hurting i see them in pain and i think this is what dalai lama would call compassion of seeing somebody else in pain and wanting to relieve the pain because we feel the pain too um yeah anyways that's it for today. I will have another one tomorrow, and I'll be, I don't know, in Amsterdam or Nairobi or somewhere. Talk to y'all soon.