MENTAL COMBAT: Knowing When to Walk Away from Conflict and

When to Walk Away

It is very important to have the strength and the resolve to be able to walk away from some situations. There is no need to remain in a situation, circumstance, environment or even a relationship that appears to be traveling down a steep path towards ultimate chaos.

Nobody needs confusion in his or her lives. We have a tendency to want to settle and handle everything in the present moment. We get emotional and are then determined to deal with the problem while we are good and steamed up rather than to wait until later. This is just not always wise. Oftentimes, cooler heads can prevail if we will just put a little time and space between ourselves and the other person, give tempers time to cool off.

I am not suggesting that you ignore something that must be resolved. I am only saying that the issue should always be about resolving the problem with a minimum of conflict and with no violence whenever possible. There is a big difference between handling conflict and allowing the conflict to handle you.

Conflict always involves other people. Other people, like yourself, are given to emotional responses, some more so than others are. For this reason it is sometimes pointless to even attempt to continue trying to ‘resolve’ anything.

Sometimes the wisest thing to do is to simply walk away from the conflict. You are always free to deal with the problem at a later time. Perhaps then the emotions will have subsided some and you both will be more apt to be reasonable and civilized.

This applies to any situation, any situation at all. It could be business; family relationships; jobs; roommates; husband and wife or some conflict with a stranger. Sometimes it’s best to just say, -“Hey look…we’re not getting anyplace here. It’s clear that we’re both very upset and not thinking rationally. Let’s just squash it for now and deal with this later after we’ve both had a chance to cool off.”

If necessary, you can even accept 100% of the blame. Tell them that you are the one who lacks the ability to continue the discussion or debate at the moment. Accept the position that it is due to your own personal weakness that you don’t think there’s any point in continuing the discussion at the moment.

The point is that if cooler heads cannot prevail, sometimes the best diplomat is time and a separation.