Agreeing to disagree
Well the one thing I think we can all agree on is that we don’t all agree. OK so that may be stating the obvious but what is not obvious is how we can sometimes be in a situation that this becomes a problem. I mean if its obvious, its because its fundamental to our human being “ness”. I’m asking you to cast your mind back now and think of another single individual that you know who you have and always will agree with a hundred percent of the time. So the question for me today isn’t “ how can we all agree” or “ why don’t we all agree” as fundamentally the answer would be impossible. So I think the more plausible more practical question is “how can we agree to disagree”. Now and again you would think that the answer is obvious but in reality it really is not that simple. To explore this further here are a few more questions I would like you to consider.
- How do you feel when someone disagrees with you.
- How do you view/feel after about this person.
- What do you do about it.
Now if you can honestly answer that you 1. Feel neutral 2. Immediately understand + respect the other person and 3. Agree to compromise or disagree then I for one would love to sit down and have many many conversations with you. If however you feel yourself getting a little emotional in response then like me maybe this is a topic worth exploring further. Now as stated earlier the nature of this blog is not about the whys and wherefores of our psychological + emotional reactions to disagreement but why and how we can communicate with each other in a balanced and harmonious way.
The first thing I would like to acknowledge is that within our differences is our uniqueness. And within our uniqueness is our authenticity, another obvious statement I know but so what? Well that so what is the why part of this question. Why do we disagree? Every single one of us has had a unique set of experiences and a unique set of responses, feelings, emotions, reactions, thoughts, and perceptions based on each experiences. Each experience has been within a unique set of circumstances with or without a unique amount of other unique individuals. Therefore its pretty easy to conclude that having to agree is not the goal but maybe the goal is to embrace our differences, bring understanding to our differing viewpoints and have empathy and compassion for another’s unique journey is as much as we can ask.
The second acknowledgement is to the fact that we are “all one”. We are all moving parts in the one great whole. Your individual part plus my individual part equals the sum total of our experience which we both then take with us into the next. My personal journey at the moment seems to be one of uncovering the these fundamental principles, to strip an idea down to its bear bones to simplify. To not to get lost under all of the layers of my own insecurities, beliefs, wishes my own perception and my own unique understanding. So how does this help in terms of disagreement, well its to recognise that to not agree is a normal functionality of us humans in fact it’s an essential ingredient to our authenticity and to listen and have compassion for another’s point of view is to honour their individuality and it is only from this place that we are able to move forward with complete honesty and balance for the whole.
