Humility. Or, What You Acquire When You Fail at Conflict.

I just wrote a blog about loving conflict.

For those of you who pray, this is the equivalent of praying for patience.

Dangerous.

Do you know how you get the gift of patience? Through people and situations that irritate the hell out of you.

Well do you know how you learn to love conflict?  Not sitting by yourself sipping hot coffee and pondering the philosophies of life, that's for sure.

You say you want to love conflict?  Well you're going to get your chance....  Because conflict is gonna' climb all over you.

Literally one day after professing my righteous and noble goal of leaning in and embracing conflict I found myself in the middle of a shit storm with my husband, Brendan.

It started the night before with a little spat over the correction of the dog's bad behaviour, and we picked it all back up the next night without missing a beat.

Hostility, harsh words and accusations of insensitivity and frustration ensued.

Long story short it ended with Brendan warning me to stop quoting Brene Brown to him and me storming out for a drive at 11 at night. (I have to confess I'm giggling a little at the Brene Brown thing).

Life has this funny way, as soon as you commit yourself to some awesome change in habits, mindsets, attitudes or lifestyle, of hitting you with all it's got in the opposite direction.

Commit to your diet? Well why don't we just make that lunchroom donut delivery a double order? (And you forgot your lunch.)

Going to pray more? Well wouldn't you know it the dog ate the bible.

Going to yell less at your kids  ... And then they seem to be the most heinous little beasts ever?

I hear you. This phenomena is real.

Call it coincidence,  call it the enemy, either way there is only one way around it.

Eat your humble pie and move on.

When you set a goal it is usually centered around an end goal, an ideal outcome ... a goal weight, more patience, less anger, cleaner floors, etc.

But no one said it all had to be up and to the right.

You know,  like on a growth or progress chart where your success or achievement is on the left axis, the time line is on the bottom and the goal is in the top right corner.  When you start you plot a line that goes straight up and to the right, directly toward the goal.

But reality is a far more squiggly thing. That line will soar and dip and do loop-de-loops. You will get to your goal, but not in a straight line.

The key is NOT TO QUIT when things get swirling.

Smile. Take a deep breath. Calm down and realize you are a human "being", not a human "finished". It's okay. We all screw up.

You can pick right on up and keep on going.  You can do that.

We all can.

That is the beauty of life.

The only thing that will stop you is pride.

An inability to see that mistakes ARE the journey... And the journey is far more exciting than the goal itself. Fear will tell you you're done for but you are not.

You are developing fortitude, character and humility.

You'll need these things because what you are moving towards is far greater than you could ever imagine.

So stand up, dust off, lean in, be courageous. You can do this. You can do it again. And again.

Bravely forth my humble fighters,

Jac :)