Managing-Conflict.SolvingConflicts.com

Get "back-to-the-basics" with your Marriage, Dating, Family, Friends, and/or Employment Relationships.

Solving Conflicts LLC Presents:

Automated Relationship &
Character Coaching Tool

FREE USE TO ALL GUESTS

Click Here To Buy It

Chapter Six
The World's Greatest Battle!
(Part One)

The word conflict implies there are two opposing sides set against each other. War is conflict. In truth, each conflict that we have with another is like a mini-war. At times, a conflict may grow into a major battle. Other times, it stays in the realm of an ongoing minor skirmish.

So then, what is personal conflict? Personal conflict is when one is at war with their own self. That sounds a bit severe, does it not? It is to be at war with your own self! To be in a war against your own self is not necessarily a bad thing. However, the worst loss in the war against your own self is suicide. Yet, self-conflict often results in victories ...not defeats!

Every human being has at least some level of self-conflict. Ellen White, a 19th century author, once wrote:

The warfare against self is the greatest battle ever fought.

Moreover, Aristotle, who is considered to be the world's greatest thinker said:

I count him braver who overcomes his desires than him who conquers his enemies; for the hardest victory is over self.

align="left">Have you ever heard it said, "A person conforms to the dictates of their own conscience?" It is sort of fancy way of saying that a person is simply following his or her own conscience.

So then, what is a conscience? Officially, it is "the sense or consciousness of the moral goodness or blameworthiness of one's own conduct, intentions, or character together with a feeling of obligation to do right or be good."

Having said that, let's simply say that our conscience is the little voice inside our head telling us to do right and not to do wrong. So then, self-conflict is when we are struggling to do the right things and not to do the wrong things.

If suicide is the worst loss in the war of self-conflict, then what is the best victory?

That is a good question! The best victory in the war of self-conflict is when we make our next choice correctly. We win our best victories just one good choice at a time. When one good choice is followed by another ...and then another, we are forming our own character. The best time to begin this pattern of character growth is now!

For now, the choices that we are talking about are those things that involve just our own selves. These choices are what we choose for ourselves when no one else is looking. They are the things we choose for ourselves when we do not think we have to be accountable for our actions. They are all those things that we choose for ourselves when we think it is nobody's business but our own!

What do you do when nobody is looking? What do you do when you do not think anybody important in your life will find out? In private, do you act the same as your friends and family think you do? Perhaps you have some secrets that no one knows about except you. Or, perhaps you have become bold and do not care anymore who is watching you or what they think about it.

It would be very easy to come up with a list of examples of many types of self-conflict. However, a problem may occur if you did not see your particular self-conflict on the list. You might talk yourself into thinking you are off the hook.

We all like to justify our actions as not being as bad as others.

We talk ourselves into thinking we are much better than we really are because we imagine that other

Of course, your own self-conflicts and self-justifications are not nearly as bad as the following examples ...um..., or perhaps your's are even worse!

• The one who over-eats may be thankful that they are not as bad as is a smoker.
  
  
• The one who is a smoker may be thankful they are not as bad as is an alcoholic.