Welcome! The Stoics understood that living by our principles will put you at odds with other people. This short essay is about why conflict is necessary, why avoiding it hurts those we claim to care about, and how to disappoint others gently. It’s a lesson in choosing what’s right even when it goes against the herd instinct. Tell me what you think in the comments.
The Necessity of Conflict
“If I am doing what is right, why should I care if I am criticized?” - Marcus Aurelius, Meditations 8.47
Surgeons know that helping someone also means first having to cut them open.
There was a time, when assisting in a spine case, I wondered how crazy it is that in order to relieve this patient’s pain- we had to inflict assault to his body. There was the scalpel cutting his skin open, the crude bone nibbler removing bone, a drill pushing screws into the bone and the lying unmoving in one position for hours- it was all quite gruesome. And if it weren’t for the pain meds, the patient would have ended up feeling worse than before during post-op. Much worse. But this procedure had to happen- to start the healing journey the patient had to go through it.
Our lives are much the same. Yes, we desire to connect with people. To laugh and have fun with them. To make them feel comfortable, loved, happy. Those are good intentions. But trying to be like that all the time begets many sins whose consequences we come to regret later.
Where Conflict Avoidance Begins
Edmund Gosse, writer of the book Father and Son, wrote a memoir about his experience growing up as the only child of a famous naturalist who was also a stout devotee of a religious cult. This was the kind of environment where honesty came with a cost- his natural doubts about God would bring him a load of shaming, endless prayers and threats about going to hell. That’s where he learned how to be agreeable.
One day, as any naughty boy does trying to test his limits- he began praying to a chair to see what would happen. Nothing did. He repeated a couple more times just to be sure. God didn’t strike him down. This remained his secret for years to come. And the book ends with him having reclaimed his ability to think for himself and choose how to live his life. He discovered free will.
People pleasers suffer from a chronic version of this. We’ve tried the same rebellion at some point in our lives, but it came with much dire consequences and an obtuse understanding that honesty, conflict and living true to our inner desires is a bad thing. It’s therefore important to scrutinize our thoughts whenever we can’t say ‘no’ without explaining ourselves because we don’t know whose influence is controlling our lives and whether they deserve to do so at this mercurial scale.
Avoidance is Expensive
We lead lives laden with conflict. Perhaps there’s a relationship you need to end and hurt a person in the process. A job you need to quit and disappoint your father. A child who needs some rules enforced even though they’ll come to hate you for it. Or even a friend who needs to hear the truth even though it’ll disappoint them. Waiting won’t make it hurt any less.
Samuel Johnson had lived an unremarkable and sad life before his fame and success. Lord Chesterfield, the rich man in his time, largely ignored him and his advances to apprentice under him. Through poverty and grief he ignore him. Until he wrote the first dictionary in the history of English language. Now Chesterfield wanted to praise him for his work, publishing two essays, angled toward taking credit as the one behind it.
Johnson couldn’t stand this hypocrisy. He wrote that a patron is someone who watched you struggle alone in water, and only after reaching land does he now come to ‘help’ you. What a shithead! The letter injured Chesterfield’s pride and ruined the relationship- given that our writer would have benefited from his wealth and power, but at least Johnson faced the situation courageously- and he got to keep his self-respect.
Be The Purple Thread
There’s a philosopher Epictetus admired- a senator working under the dictator Nero. His name was Agrippinus. Now, attending the emperor’s theatrical performances had become a loyalty test. You had to show up or you’d be considered legible for a mysterious murder. Agrippinus didn’t burge. Someone asked him why he put himself at risk like this. He retorted that he wanted to be the purple strip in a garment, which gives it its allure, rather than be the plain white thread that most people were- bunch of losers.
Epictetus follows with another story of Helvidius Priscus, who had been ordered by the emperor Vespasian not to attend a senate meeting. He went anyway. He was then warned that he shouldn’t speak his mind, else he’d be killed- he told them that he’d speak as he saw fit, his job was to tell the truth. And when questioned if he wasn’t scared of being murdered- he told them he wasn’t immortal anyway. Badass!
We all face a version of this. Our friend might get sad, our mother’s guilt may cripple us, our partner may get an awful day, and it’s not easy to endure any of this. But people need to know where you stand. Character means nothing if it breaks under stress. This is what the Greeks called parrhesia or speaking freely. Only through this candidness can you get true affection and belonging. All else is fakery.
How to Grow Up
Cicero once criticized Cato, claiming he spoke as if he lived in Plato’s Republic and not the dregs of Rome.
Cato could be rigid and frustrating, even to his friends and allies. And that’s because he had decided that it was worth the price to pay rather than play nice and lose his moral ground.
Someone will be disappointed in you and you’ll survive. They’ll not beat you up. You don’t eat at their house. Your father might get ashamed of your decisions. Your friend might be hurt by your move. And even someone you love might not get the strategy behind your deeds. Still, their reactions are not the final judge to the validity and worth of your actions. Sometimes your path only has to make sense to you.
In the end, the stubbornness of this idea did cost Cato. But it’s prudent to still learn from his steadfastness. It’s also important to reconsider our position, listen to people and apologize if we’ve hurt them in some way. Otherwise, we lose what we love dearly- as Cato lost his Rome.
A better measure of if we’re having good conflict is whether the discomfort we feel is moving us toward a better ideal and happier relationships or it’s just damaging us. Peace comes from having a good character, maintaining that- and having clear cut boundaries of what we want and don’t. Of what’s good and isn’t.
My other work on the Relationship Series,
“People need to know where you stand.” Well said. It reminds me of the quote, a friend of everyone is a friend to no one. Paraphrasing.
Conflict is needed to grow 💪