“In Al-Anon, conflicting views become merely differing views” (ODAT, 22 November)
Since I’m responsible for me, and you’re responsible for you, I’m not responsible for you, and you’re not responsible for me.
That’s why the course others choose is their business, not mine, and the course I choose is my business not others’.
Similarly: their views, their attitudes, their opinions, their beliefs, their ideas, the way they work the programme, whether they work the programme, how they want the group to be, et cetera.
In business meetings and group consciences, I can state a view (if the idea is novel and has not already been presented) and then shut up and listen. I need not attempt to convince anyone or argue. People might agree or they might not. A proposal may be made or it might not. If so invited, I vote, and if asked to air a minority opinion, I might, although I need not feel obliged.
In the home, I need not dislodge anyone’s view of anything.
I certainly cannot change what anyone else thinks by Doing Good Explaining.
Anything I feel impelled to say almost certainly shouldn’t be said.
Almost nothing that needs to be said needs to be said right now.
Unless you can smell smoke or something is bleeding.
One can be surrounded by difference and be entirely untroubled by it if only one will simply let others be, and trust that they’ll return the courtesy.
This is how I avoid conflict.