Every day is Election Day, when you are making choices about how you respond (or don’t) to a conflict or dispute.
- Avoidance means you’re voting with your emotional feet to keep going and not confront.
- Attack means you’re voting with your emotional feet to engage the other party in a way that makes you feel comfortable, but which may do nothing to alleviate or change the process.
- Accommodate means you’re voting with your emotional feet to “go along to get along” as either part of a larger strategy, or just because you don’t have the energy to confront, don’t think that it’s worth it, or don’t want to be involved with the conflict process at all.
There are many societal and cultural messages about voting on Election Day in the United States. Many of them focus on words like duty, responsibility and accountability and equate voting for a person with meaning and mattering in a civic sense.
In a democracy (or a republic) voting matters for many reasons, but the words that we use to get across the message that going to perform a public act privately one day every two to four years, could also be applied to educating ourselves about the ways we vote with our emotional feet.
Otherwise, why make a choice (about a candidate, or a conflict) at all?
-Peace Be With You All-
Jesan Sorrells, MA
Principal Conflict Engagement Consultant
Human Services Consulting and Training (HSCT)
Email HSCT: jsorrells@hsconsultingandtraining.com
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/HSConsultingandTraining
Twitter: https://www.twitter.com/Sorrells79
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jesansorrells/
