Journal One

Conflict is a central part to everyone's lives. I'm a camp counselor, a sister, a daughter, a friend, and a student. Conflict arises in every one of those aspects of my life. However much conflict fascinates me on a broader national/international scale, it scares me in my own life. I try to avoid it often and when I' confronted with it am often very quiet. I know this is incredibly irritating to others involved who are trying to work out whatever is going on but I'm often scared to speak or don't know what to say.
When I'm a camp counselor I'm good at managing conflict between campers and have a lot of practice mediating them and getting them to work out the problem in a constructive way. However, when conflict becomes more complex than two campers fighting over who gets to us which towel, or a camper who's upset that she doesn't like her lunch for the third day in a row, I become more scared of it and sometimes don't know how to approach it constructively while maintaining relationships of respect and love. I kind of know in theory, but putting it into practice is more difficult for me.
I think all conflicts matter because they're what change things—however large a scale that may be on. I think the thing that most attracts me to finding a peaceful resolution to conflict is understanding the humanity on both sides of every situation and wanting to maintain, or create if they don't already exist, relationships based on respect and love. Although I've lived a very protected life and large conflict has never directly affected me I know a lot of people who it has. I grew up with and still know a lot of people who have been affected and part of large violent conflicts and hearing them talk about its effects on people they know and love, as well as a need to solve conflict more constructively in my own life is a lot of what draws me to needing to find peaceful solutions to conflict.