# How to handle conflicts

When used correctly, conflict benefits everyone involved:

- If you ask for what you want correctly, you can usually get it.
- When driven by [love](people-love.md), conflicts drive each person to understand each other more, and relationships become stronger from it (especially [marriage](relationships-marriage.md)).
- Open-minded participants of conflicts often become more [aware](awareness.md) of themselves and [how they may appear](people-image-why.md).
- After healthy conflicts, people are less afraid to open up further discussions about future conflicts, which strengthens [relationships](people-friends.md) and harmonizes their [culture](people-culture.md).
- Critical conflicts, handled correctly, can make or break entire [organizations](groups-large.md).

However, you need [the correct attitude](people-conflicts-attitudes.md) for approaching conflicts correctly.

Most [casual conflicts](people-conflicts-casual.md) can be easily managed without much effort.

- [Disagreements](people-conflicts-disagreements.md) can be difficult, but are often necessary when casual conflicts escalate.
- Depending who you are around, you may encounter [bad conflict management styles](people-conflicts-bad.md)
- If it ever becomes a [crucial conflict](people-conflicts-crucial.md), it must be addressed correctly.

[Conflict](people-conflicts-why.md) requires high-stress communication:

- Every conflict requires [speaking well](language-speaking.md) and [maintaining your composure](awareness.md), which requires [managing stress](mind-feelings-happiness-stress.md) to avoid saying something you'll regret.
- Your [internalized subconscious trauma](hardship-ptsd.md) will very often add more problems to the conflict, so [self-awareness](awareness.md) is *absolutely* critical to understand what you're feeling moment-to-moment.
- When conflicts go poorly, we suffer [tremendous misery](mind-feelings-happiness-stress.md) from prolonged thinking about it, as well as [anticipatory pain](hardship.md) later.

Deferring conflict frequently magnifies it:

- All conflicts are risky, but the earliest possible moment to address it is typically the lowest-risk time to approach it.
- Stalling a conflict, even a small one, makes it worse.
  - Many conflicts require [lying](people-lying.md) to stall it.
  - Even without lying, the conflict sits as an [unresolved problem](purpose.md) interfering with [the perfect harmony we all desire](goodlife.md).
- [Close relationships](people-friends.md) require trust, which requires talking out conflicts.

## Only create conflicts with a purpose in mind

When you become effective at conflicts, it's easy to engage with them whenever you want.

The only noble and worthwhile conflicts are driven by [love](people-love.md) for others:

- You *must* go easy on others, since we are all fragile, hurt people, irrespective of what we've done.
- Even if we don't love our opponents, we must [respect them](people-3_respect.md) in their position.

However, in unhealthy conflicts, exploiting something for others' gain may not be [wrong](morality-evil.md), but it's *never* [right](morality.md).

Don't worry about "winning", since getting an okay (but not great) deal very frequently [builds relationships](people-friends.md) in the process, and you can always revisit the situation after enough time passes.