Antagonism and discord is simply an unavoidable part of the human experience.  Or is it?  Why do we get into adversarial situations with others?  How much of the adversarial context is of our own making?

It is arguable that we are exclusively the architects of our own fate.  We choose to argue, get angry, and assume the other is in the wrong.  Thus perhaps the adversarial situation is of our choosing.

Reflect on Cause

While not exclusively true, most of us prefer to stay away from conflict.  Perhaps mild and congenial conflict of a scholarly nature handled in a respectful way from everyone’s perspective is okay, beyond that, it makes us feel bad.

When a disagreement with someone, that is an exchange of diverging or opposite views morphs into an argument it will typically become a heated or angry one.

When I feel this is occurring, I pause and consider, how much of this escalation is me choosing to go down the adversarial path and how much is just ordained (It is what it is)?

Rhetorical Question

The preceding question is often rhetorical in that I know the answer before I ask it of myself.  It’s almost always within my control to stop, drop, and roll away from the conflict (That also works if you are on fire).

Perhaps, from a self-justification perspective assigning the blame for the distasteful interaction and the resulting anger, frustration, sadness, etc (all the negative emotions) is habitual, but is it helpful.

Accept it is you, defuse, be happy and move on.  For goodness sake, why not.  And ultimately if you both behave that way, conflicts and arguments just disappear.