Internal Conflicts---Thoughts

I suppose I have never been at such a conflict in my life before.

Have you ever totally felt that you were doing the right thing, and then you’re not sure, and then you think maybe you’re wrong, and then you go back to feeling that you were actually right, and you can’t seem to just figure it out?

It seems like life would be more black and white than that, and it usually is. But somehow, there are also these little mud holes of black and white goop that mix together to form an incomprehensible mess. I could have never predicted it, and such it is with most things.

Life is so unpredictable, and so are people; extremely unpredictable. One day they might say and do one thing, and the very next day everything could be totally contradicting that. They might walk a mile with you one day, and then the next you are total strangers.

Although that isn’t usually the case, it might be good to prepare yourself a little bit. People aren’t always what they might seem, they don’t always hear what is being said, and they don’t always see the things that they have done.

Sometimes you might feel that you were totally in the right, only to feel five minutes later that you were a complete idiot.

Sometimes you think you are helping somebody out, only to realize that they don’t, and never did, care.

Sometimes you still care about somebody, only to find out that you are dust in the wind to them.

The only problem is when it makes you hurt inside, but you aren't entirely sure why. All logic and reason points against it, yet logic and reason don’t really seem to be running this world sometimes.

So I sit here in music therapy, music from my computer pounding my ears out, as I try to figure this out. I lay it out piece by piece, and still, I am not sure. The pieces of the puzzle aren’t fitting together. What’s been told, what’s been done, everything that’s happening doesn’t seem to quite match up together. So you use your mind to try and fill in the blanks. But there could be any number of possible answers.

Who knows what the truth is anymore? Is there really ever any truth to anything anymore?

Two people may see things from two totally different points of view, yet when they try to talk about it, it still doesn’t make any sense. What can you do then? What makes you right and the other person wrong? What gives you the right to say? Both people may truly feel like the other is not listening at all, yet both are listening, just really not agreeing at all.

What does it take to just put this all behind us and try again? How many chances does a person get before it’s all lost? How much hope can you hold onto? How many times can the nail be pounded before it breaks? How many times can the mirror be dropped before it shatters?

Internal conflict is the very worst kind. You get up every morning just wondering if your heart and mind are actually going to agree this time, and wondering what in the world you can say today to try and fix the problems. You say what feels right and what you think is right, but to the other person, it might feel wrong.

Do you just let it all go? Forget it all ever happened? What gives one person the right to really punish the other, and the other to have to just sit and take it? Does age and authority always matter in cases like these? Do the authority always have the say, or do the young have a right too? And where do you go from there?

When both feel that the other is wrong, but only the authority has the power to punish, does that give them the right?

Would you lose a friendship just because you don’t agree with the other person? Would you push someone away just because they are hurting and are not being their best self? Would you let someone go just because someone else tells you to?

People almost always know when they are doing something wrong. They don't need to be disfigured with a literary knife for it. Usually when they mess up constantly, it's not because they're stupid or rebellious. Usually it's because they're hurting for some reason. That can cause rebellion. Cutting them open won't help them to heal. But warmth, comfort, and encouragement will. 

A person’s views can be gradually changed through the constant pushing of certain views on them. The greatest person alive can be standing in front of you or even someone you loved, but if someone has told you over and over again how horrible they are, it will somehow still be embedded in your mind.

Would you judge someone solely off of what you’ve seen and what someone else has been telling you?

Or would you listen to what that person is going through first?

Would that be more important than what you or anyone else is seeing in them? Or would you just let their thoughts and feelings be faked or totally just disregarded?

Tara J. Howard


Copyright 2014