Uncomfortable Conversations

We all have them, at one point or another. These are the conversations we would rather not have to have, but are necessary. Personally, I hate them, and like most people, work so hard at avoiding them that it would often be easier to just get it over and done.
Uncomfortable conversations come in many guises. They occur at different times in our lives, for different reasons, and are almost always about the things we think about least... because those things make us uncomfortable. Occasionally, they are about the things we think about constantly, (like that nasty hoarding habit which is growing slowly.... you know who you are!), but mostly it is the things that we push away because it is just too hard to deal with, like Gay rights, or refugees, or why you don't recycle as much as you could, despite that Greenpeace membership you took, ( insert Sea Shepherd, World Wildlife Fund, PETA, Save the Animals, Green Party, etc, etc.).

Sometimes, though, it's impossible to avoid, and we have to have the conversation we don't want to have, the "little chat" in which we feel cornered, trapped, and forced to face the fact that we have to justify ignoring something on which we should have a position. It could be that someone has deliberately button-holed us and forced the subject to the surface, so there is nowhere to hide, or perhaps it is a social situation in which the conversation gradually circles around, before zeroing in on the one subject you try to avoid, and someone turns to you and says, "So what do YOU think...".

In both situations, you can choose your course of action; you can bluff and prevaricate, which invariably makes you look weak, and leaves you open to attack. You can retreat and pretend ignorance, which will immediately destroy your credibility with your audience. Or you can plunge ahead, admit your uncertainties, your prejudices, fears and preconceptions, which will immediately alienate at least some of your audience, especially if they are part of the group under discussion.

Which is why we don't want uncomfortable conversations in the first place.

But how about this...

If we were to confront our fears, our prejudices and preconceptions, if we were to learn as much as we can, from unbiased sources, about all the things we don't like to talk about, and sift the information through our minds as we go about our daily life, then perhaps the "uncomfortable" part of the conversation may not be there. The embarrassment of our opinion might disappear, because we are informed, and can justify our opposition, or because we have learned, and can admit that once we didn't agree, but now we do. We may also learn to appreciate the position of those we do not agree with, and no longer fear them as aggressors and as being argumentative.

Which leaves one problem.

Sooner or later, we are going to have to admit that uncomfortable conversations start with us. We are the ones that set the parameters for these conversations, and it is US that actually make the conversations "uncomfortable" because of our own attitudes. In fact, if we are honest, each of us has, as individuals, many conversations inside ourselves which we do not want to have, because of the truths about ourselves which we need to face, but do not want to.

This is where the conversations need to start.
The most difficult conversations are those we need to have with ourselves.