Disagreement dilemma - Tender or surrender?

Being tender without surrender when someone disagrees with you is a mighty feat only a few master. It's a known fact that you will never be able to please everyone whether it be in the office, at home or in society. Maturity, whether its professional, personal or spiritual, is seen in how you handle those who disagree with you and your success or win is gauged based on how well you handled it.

Handling disagreement is after all skill, quality or talent (if you're born with it) that transcends profession, gender and age.There will always be people, unavoidably in your way, who like to argue and quarrel. There will always be people who use the work environment to malign you personally and vice versa. There will always be people who will contradict everything you say either to appear superior or just to get on your nerves. How should you respond to them? What if you don't?

Quite a few people have an insecure or impulsive need to demolish anyone who disagrees?with them. Sometimes this could be due to stress, spite or heartbreak which is normal due to it's sporadicity. However many of them are those who don't even know they're suffering from NPD (narcissistic personality disorder). Identifying people with OCD is too easy compared to those who have NPD which usually passes off as bad behavior, anger issues, substance issues, health issues and whatever name you want to give it. Worst is those suffering will usually (and violently) never admit to having it. But it can be identified by people who spend a long time working or living with such a person. Ignorance is never bliss. Rather, managing or handling people with NPD exacts a physical, psychological, financial, spiritual and emotional toll on you long-term and short-term. If you challenge them or offer a comparison, complaint, or criticism, they respond with a full-blown personal attack. Then?what do you do??

You usually have three alternatives:?

(1) Retreating in fear. Many people choose this route because they haven’t developed the ability to respond in gentleness. So, if?you’re a “peace at any price” person, it will have hidden costs in your life’s most important relationships.What affects you professionally will eventually affect your personally.

(2) Reacting in anger. Anger is often a telltale sign that you feel insecure and threatened by someone’s disapproval. It’s a warning?light that tells you you’re about to lose something, often your self-esteem. When we become angry, often we become sarcastic and?attack the other person’s self-worth.?Nobody wins when both parties lash out at each other.

(3) Responding in gentleness. This is the kind of response that requires a?fine balance between maintaining your right to an opinion, while equally respecting another person’s right to their opinion. It requires?being tender without surrendering your convictions. Sometimes you must stand by your convictions. But other times you will find you’re?answering this question: “Is our relationship more important than the point I’m trying to prove?”

Does love factor in being gentle? In his book The Fred Factor Mark Sanborn writes: “I learned a long time ago that liking people and loving them are different. Liking?someone is an emotional response. Unlike love, ‘like’ is a feeling. The tough part is that we can’t control our emotions. We can control?how we choose to express those emotions but not the feelings themselves. A healthy person can choose to be angry and still choose to?act lovingly…A feeling is but a reaction that leads to choices you may or may not regret.

A gentle answer quiets anger, but a harsh one stirs it up. - Proverbs 15:1