Living on Conflict

I realized recently, that some people can't go through life without conflict.  They find ways to pick mental fights, to stir up someone's emotions.   It is passive aggressive to the max.  People looking in from the outside often can't see what is happening, and it tends to look like the person being "beat up" is the one at fault.

I actually used to be the aggressor.  I used to look for faults in people so that I could put them down. (no wonder I didn't have many friends when I was a kid). 

It was a weird habit of raising oneself to a higher status, because either no one could live up to my  standards, or someone was always out to trick me,  or get the better of me. 

I was learned at a young age that everything that someone did, if it was contrary to my expectations, of not done how I wanted it done,  they were doing said action out of spite,  simply to show me up or to put me down. 

And I was very wrong.  At some point, I started to realize that people actually want to be my friend for no other reason than to be my friend.  And then I started to realize that people were doing things differently than me, because they are different than me. Simple.   And after that,  it dawned on me that people were not meeting my expectations, only because I was the one who had failed to express my desires,  failed to express what I expected.  

It took a lot of work to retrain the brain, but as soon as I started to let go of these negative thought patterns,  and accept people for who they are where they are,  I started to develop some solid, healthy friendships. 

Living on conflict takes up way too much energy,  my own, and the person I am targeting.  Get out of the habit,  accept that people do things differently.  And most of all,  don't place expectations on people that they can't live up to.  Just because you think they can,  does not mean that they can.