Dealing with Different Approaches

Dealing with Different Approaches — differences are in our heads — they’re not a part of the situation.

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Just last night we were talking with friends about a trip we all took to Nicaragua.

None of us have been back since the “pres­i­dent” (who shall for­ev­er be unnamed) declared him­self pres­i­dent for life. Shades of the Orange Moron.

Any­way, we had a blast in Grana­da, Nicaragua that last trip. Dar­bel­la and I had been there before for lan­guage school. The first time, we stayed with a Nicaraguan fam­i­ly dur­ing the week of school.

The coun­try is def­i­nite­ly dif­fer­ent from Cos­ta Rica, and Grana­da is a major city, so we learned to dodge traf­fic while sur­round­ed by “mucha gente.” (lots of people.)

We’ve had a bit of a discussion with our friends about travelling and about flexibility.

I think Flex­i­bil­i­ty is the key to doing what we do… mov­ing into a com­mu­ni­ty for long stretch­es… like liv­ing with a Nica fam­i­ly while tak­ing Span­ish lessons. 

As opposed to vaca­tions, which a lot of peo­ple take… and then either stay at resorts, or gripe about how “It’s not like this at home.” 

I guess this is a lot like Zen, and of course Zen makes no sense to some peo­ple. All that “noth­ing means any­thing, so just be with it” stuff.

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I’m endlessly fascinated with the drama different approaches can lead to.

One of the peo­ple who stayed with our fam­i­ly was a woman who was enter­ing her sec­ond year of a Mas­ters in social work in the States. We had inter­est­ing dis­cus­sions over meals about this topic…

how Flex­i­bil­i­ty and the will­ing­ness to be open to the expe­ri­ence at hand
is key to work­ing through con­flicts that are
noth­ing more than dif­fer­ent approaches. 

This fits with our end­less arti­cles con­cern­ing how, even with cou­ples liv­ing in the same space, noth­ing is per­ceived in the same way. Dif­fer­ent peo­ple = dif­fer­ent approach­es / viewpoints.

Dar and I notice this as we study Span­ish. Her skill set dif­fers from mine, despite our hav­ing been in the same class­es / online and “real.” This can be dis­con­cert­ing, espe­cial­ly when peo­ple for­get that their way of see­ing things is not uni­ver­sal.

It is all too easy to get caught in being right, as opposed to seeing clearly. 

For exam­ple, one day we were con­ju­ga­tion irreg­u­lar verbs in the present tense. Fun, fun, fun. The teacher tossed out poder, which means could. My mind blanked, and I couldn’t remem­ber what it meant or how to con­ju­gate it. 

Dar blazed right through it, and, see­ing me sit­ting there star­ing into the mid­dle dis­tance, said, “You know this,” which land­ed with a thud. 

She then said, “puedo” which is first person. 

Boom. I was into, “I’m stu­pid, this is ter­ri­ble, I’ll nev­er get this.” 

Then I went to “Dar should have said that dif­fer­ent­ly, so I won’t annoy myself…” along with me get­ting qui­et and grumpy. 

So much so that I can’t even remem­ber how I con­ju­gat­ed the verb (puedo, puedes, puede, podemos, pueden, if you’re curi­ous 😉 ) I messed with myself for 15 min­utes, alter­nat­ing between dump­ing all over myself, then blam­ing Dar, then blam­ing the teacher for pick­ing the word.

And then I had a breath. Because, you see, the word is just a word, and the teacher picked it, and Dar con­ju­gat­ed it eas­i­ly, and I didn’t and that’s just the way it was. I’m not stu­pid, and Dar­bel­la’s not with­hold­ing infor­ma­tion, and the teacher isn’t perverse.

All of that blaming and judging is an interpretation, and it’s all me.

Every prob­lem is like this… one per­son sees or does some­thing one way, and anoth­er does it dif­fer­ent­ly. “Why is this hap­pen­ing,” or “What’s wrong with the oth­er per­son (or sit­u­a­tion, or coun­ty)” is not the point at all.

Hard to remember when you’re winding yourself up over different approaches.

I sug­gest pay­ing atten­tion.

Notic­ing how you’re doing your part of the drama. 

Pulling in your horns, and instead ask­ing your­self, “Giv­en this sit­u­a­tion, how can I shift myself, my behav­iour, and try this anoth­er way?” 

Some­one put it, 

“Instead of blam­ing the oth­er per­son, deal with your own anger (or games, or sad­ness, or frustration.” 

Not hard to do, actu­al­ly. The hard part is remem­ber­ing to do it in the first place.

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