It started when I was a year old boy. My grandmother started taking good care of me since I was a year old. She saw me through my primary level. My uncles used to take me to playing ground to play football. I knew how to play football very well and used to dribble my mates and uncles’ friends but they used to kick me out of the ball that we normally played. Most of the time, my uncles’ friends used to give me hard tackle on my legs that normally led to injuries but my uncles complained to them not to get me injured. Upon all the talks, they would not listen to them.
There was a day that one of my uncle’s friends gave me hard tackle on the playing field that led me to be crying and rolling on the ground. One of my uncles pushed him and complained about what he did to me but instead of him to say sorry to me, he started fighting my uncle. My uncle beat him to the extent that he bit my uncle. My uncle asked me to run home and he also ran away for his friend. After two hours to the incident, my uncle’s friend came to our house with weapons insisted that he was going to kill my uncle and me. When my uncle saw him with weapons, he also brought his own weapons to fight with him. My area and our house were very brutal that day because when my other uncles saw him, they came out to fight him also. It was people around our area that God used to settle the issue because this incident could have resulted to bloodshed.
Three days later, my grandmother called and started telling me how I was going to live my life and how I could make peace with the people I dealt with. She told me how to make peace in the house, community, state and nation in general. My grandmother had a wealth of experience in the conflict resolution. She used to tell me that the conflict resolution is to make peace. She said that I cannot make peace with people by disagreement or forces but it can only be accomplished by the words of understanding. When i believe in people and they believe me with unarmed truth and unconditional love, there will be peace within one another at the end of the day. For me to enjoy peace, good health and true happiness to my life and to bring peace to all people, i must first discipline and control my own mind. If a man can control his mind, he can find the way to understanding, enlightenment, and all wisdom and virtue will naturally come to him.
You cannot believe that peace is not absence of conflict but it is the ability to handle conflict by peaceful means. She told me that even though someone has everything the world can give like pleasure, possession and power, but lack peace of mind, he or she can never be happy. This is because happiness and true happiness is an inner quality. It is a state of mind. If my mind is at peace, I am happy. If my mind is at peace, but I have nothing else, but I can be happy. When the power of love that i have for the people overcomes the love of power, I will make peace with people in the whole wide world. If I can imagine all the people living life in peace, the world will be as one. Once I neither overrate people for what I have received from them, nor envy others for what they have or possess, it may be very difficult obtain peace of mind. She mentioned that I must never be in a hurry in everything that I lay my hands on; but I must do everything quietly and in a calm spirit.
Also, I must not lose my inner peace for anything whatsoever, even if my whole world seems upset. For me to be on this earth, I must keep peace to myself first before bringing peace to other people. For me to gradually change my negative opinions, quietly build new structures of myself and old barriers, I need to keep peace all the time. If i need to make peace, I do not need to take everybody as my enemy(s), but I need to work with everybody in order to become my partner(s). I was being told that peace involves the most heroic labor and the most difficult sacrifice. It involves greater heroism than war. It involves greater fidelity to the truth and a much more perfect purity of conscience. Once someone forgets that we human beings belong to one another, there will be no peace.
She lets me know that peace is an occurrence of harmony characterized by the lack of violence, conflict behaviors and the freedom from fear of violence. It is commonly understood as the absence of hostility and retribution, peace also suggests sincere attempts at reconciliation, the existence of healthy or newly healed interpersonal or international relationships, prosperity in matters of social or economic welfare, the establishment of equality, and a working political order that serves the true interests of all. Peace comes from being able to contribute the best that we have, and all that we are, toward creating a world that supports everyone. But it is also securing the space for others to contribute the best that they have and all that they are. It is being said that there is no trust more sacred than the one the world holds with people. There is no duty more important than ensuring that their right ethics are respected, that their welfare is protected, that their lives are free from fear and want and that they grow up in peace. It is known to me that where there is no justice there can be no secure peace.
Once I am not ready to have disagreement with anybody, I must serious make peace, and then i must work for it as ardently, seriously, continuously, carefully, and bravely as i have ever prepared for conflict. Whatever i lay my hands on, i first make peace, which is the most important to me in my life, it is that which comes within the soul of mine when i realize their relationship, my oneness, with the universe and all its powers, and when i realize that at the center of the universe dwells, and that this center is really everywhere, it is within me. She made me to be aware that peace is never long preserved by weight of metal or by an armament race but peace can be made tranquil and secure only by understanding and agreement fortified by sanctions. We know more people in the whole world about war than we know about peace, more about killing than we know about living.
If I need to be a serious and peace maker, then i must work for it as ardently, seriously, continuously, carefully, and bravely as i have ever prepared for war. But above all, what I need to understand is that there can never be peace between us, communities, states and nations until we are being first known that true peace which is within the souls of us. Personally, no matter what people have done to me, it still matters how i treat them to be in my mind and will lead to reactions that I will give out. Those people who are fighting with others are not at peace with themselves because there will be no good result(s) that will be derived from the fight. Someone cannot avoid people living on this earth by saying he or she is finding peace. We are going to live together and make peace with one another no matter the condition and situation that we meet ourselves.
Once we believe in the religion we worship and holy book we carry, we must not fight one another for so ever happens between us because I believe that the Almighty God is God of peace and His words always stand for peace. When majority of the people decide to choose wrong and violent ways, I must always choose peace in my life. She told me that i must more and more insist on having kinds of love, of kindness, of understanding, and of peace with neighbor and the people that i deal with in everyday of my life. It is easy to say and proclaim peace with our mouths but it is very difficult to practice it and more careful to have it even more fully in our hearts. I was being told that peace is not directed to be a relationship of cultures but it is a condition and situation of mind brought about by a serenity of our souls. Also it is not merely the absence of conflict but it is also a state of our minds. You can only see lasting peace with only peaceful people that make use of it every day of their lives and they are people that settle the conflict whenever it occurs. They used to call them wise people with wise knowledge and minds who are free of resentful thoughts surely find peace.
Always in our life, we used to be at peace with God simply because we cannot see and reach Him expect through prayer but our fight or conflict will be with one another for unacceptable, arguable and unnecessary things. If i am gentle and quiet to maintain peace, people that I am living with are there to cheat, take advantages of me and take me for granted, but my grandmother told me that to be sincere with me; it is quiet and an unfortunate fact that i can still secure peace only by preparing for war. There are some people that used to inherit what is not theirs but someone needs to collect inherited property(s) by fighting them to get it (them) back. It is always good to have a certain peace in being what i am and to be that completely.
To maintain peace on this earth, we need to be in harmony between different people or group of people that is characterized by lack of violence, conflict behaviors and the freedom from fear of violence. In the olden days, wise people then understood that they needed not to practice hostility and retribution, They always made the suggestions of peace and sincerity attempts at reconciliation, the existence of healthy or newly healed interpersonal or international relationships, prosperity in matters of social or economic welfare, the establishment of equality, and a working political order that serves the true interests of all. In a person personal life, he or she needs cultivate the idea(s) of a personal level, a peaceful behavior, a consideration, a respectful, and a tolerant of others’ beliefs and behaviors that can lead and manifest good image.
She made it clear that the religious believed and practiced by the people might be quite different from the others and this might lead to the basic cause of conflicts among and between persons or group of people and societies.
She made it known to me that i need to build peace by staying away from violence and make sure to save lives because together we can make it happen in life. We need to help one another by standing up for peace whenever the painful reality is being faced. To fulfill your dreams in life, i need to be in peace with myself and the people that i deal with. If someone offends us through one issue or the other, it may be very hard to forget pain that we derive from the issue, but it may be even harder to remember sweetness that person did in the past or is going to do in the future. We must show happiness through the day of our life in order to learn how to have peace. Fighting to have peace in life is like someone that is looking for gold or diamond in the hard rock beneath the earth. By looking for this, there is no way that you will hurt some people on your way. In everything you do in life, make sure that you stand for the truth and the truth because it is one leading someone to be great in life.
We cannot achieve peace once some people believe in power and rule over them without their love and well being but they do not realize that the day the power of love overrules the love of power, the world will know peace.
Disagreement occurs between people in all kinds of human relationships and in all social settings that I meet myself. There is no way the conflict will not occur in as much that we are dealing with each other or one another. Because of the wide range of potential differences among people, the absence of disagreement usually signals the absence of meaningful interaction.
She started further by saying the disagreement is an incompatibility of goals or values between two or more parties in a relationship, joined with attempts to control or command each other and antagonistic feelings toward each other. Disagreement or conflict can lead to a great deal of destruction or much creativity and positive social change. All these things used to occur when people in a party want to get the worst that they can and the behavior and emotions of each people party are directed toward maximizing it’s their gains. This disagreement occurs when people are incompatibility in ways of life, ideologies based on the preferences, principles and practices that people believed in. This disagreement used to turn to the cold war between the communities or the nations during boundary sharing. Some people do not believe that there must be the rightness and wrongness and inferiority and superiority of their ways of life. People that are wrong in their ways of life will still be claiming that they are very right while the people that are interior in their life will still be fighting that they are very superior in their life. The problem is that the values and ideas people practices and believed in making them to believe that those ways. This disagreement also occurs when people wish to maintain or maximize the amount of influence that they exerted in the relationship and the social setting. People do not believe that there must be stronger people and weaker people. Instead of them to admit to the power they belong to, they will still be fighting whatever the level or power they do not belong to. People believed that competition breeds competition, rather than cooperation. If people believe in the evil intentions of the other and the inevitability of disagreement, and therefore takes precautionary actions which signal must rust and competitiveness.
Disagreement occurs when two people have incompatible needs, goods, or approach in their relationship. This refers to very strong differences in motives, values or styles in dealing with people that are not resolvable. All these used to occur in our societies including the whole world. Common tactics used in interpersonal power struggles include the exaggerated use of rewards and punishments, deception and evasion, threat and emotional blackmail, and flattery of ingratiation. Unresolved power disagreement usually recycles and escalates to the point of relationship breakdown and termination. All there are happening in the whole world generally.
My grandmother told me that I could not live peaceful in this life without dealing with disagreement (conflict). These agreements are inescapable in a society. It can also be used as motivators for healthy change. She told me that I should be able emerging conflicts and take appropriate pre-empathize action. She stated further that I should understand the causes creating conflicts, the outcome of disagreement and various methods by which it can be managed by me. With her experience, she said that I should evolve an approach for resolving disagreements before their disruptive repercussions have an impact on my productivity and creativity. Therefore, I should also possess skills to reach to conflict situations, and should create an open climate for communication between conflicting parties.
She told me the different ways in which two groups or individuals face a conflict situation could reach to make peace. Negotiate towards a settlement with the other party. Negotiations take place within the prevailing situation by bringing the conflicting parties together on some common ground for negotiations. I will stand as a third-party role that will bring them together. Fighting approach can be introduced to deal with a conflict situation that involves tactics, strategies, offensive and defensive positions. This is mostly occurred at the judicial process by taking the parties to the losing and winning grounds, and exposure of their strong and weak points. Fighting as a way of resolving a disagreement can only be useful in courtroom situations. Another way of resolving conflicts or disagreements are by introducing problem solves method. It involves identifying and removing the cause of the conflict so as to make the situation normal again. The influence of this conflict must also be identified and removed in order to be easy to resolve the disagreement totally. Another way round is by creating a proper understanding of the views and situations of the conflicting parties. The design proposed idea of me should be appropriate and acceptable to the parties in disagreement or conflict.
This agreement occurs when there is no trust between two people or more. If there is no trust among the friends that used to do business together, this may be the profits they derive from business. She told me the story of two friends that did business together with white men. One of them understood French language while the other did not. When it came to the time the white men wanted to give them money after finishing the work, one of them taught that the other person was no sincere with him. This led to the disagreement between them. Both of them decided to part their business until someone that understood their language and France language settled the matter. This disagreement happens between husband and wife when there is no trust or misunderstanding. Husband needs to trust and understand his wife while his wife also needs to believe and understand her husband no matter what transpires between them.
People do not want to take full responsibilities for everything they are doing. This occurs in the working place where the workers shield their functions to the other to do. This can lead to disagreement that may be difficult to resolve. She told me that instead of them to work together in order to achieve the company’s goals and objectives, they will be putting allegations and blames on one another.
People fight each other or one another because they are willing to change their thinking as more information is found and new options are suggested. The proverb used to say that “one man’s food is another person’s poison.” We do not have the same thinking and this causes the reasons why people act and behave in different ways. Likewise, the feelings of people are not the same because the way some people feel about something will be quite different from other and these different peoples’ feelings can also lead to conflict between them.
She continued telling me that some people cannot manage the situations (conditions) either good or bad. Some people cannot endure and adapt to the condition(s) they meet themselves because they think that is the end of their lives. The condition(s) they are now will make them to be angry with people and even though to themselves which can also lead to disagreement with other people.
Moreover, she stated that people are very arrogant to say sorry to either Youngers or elders they let down or offend will be difficult. By mistake, it is normal to step or match on someone’s shoe but it is good to learn how say sorry immediately the incident happens. The people left their working places nowadays because they refused to say sorry to their bosses. People appreciate you to say sorry than for you to go on argument. Even though you mistakenly did what you did, you still need to learn how to say sorry either you are right or wrong. Since we have been fighting with one another in the whole world, it has never found remedies (solutions) to the problems that we are facing in the whole wide world. We need to come and work together as a family in order to achieve our aims and objectives.
She told me about her own short story that she was living in a paradise, her life was a mess. She told that she had never been so miserable and depressed in her life. Her calabash scripture business was failing; she had no income, and owed thousands of naira to loaners. Up to this time in her life, i had for the most part been successful. She had experience setbacks before, but the loss of her once very successful business was a monster bigger than she could handle. More than the loss of money, and more than the embarrassment of facing friends, family and creditors, she had lost confidence in herself. She doubted herself. She was her own worst critic. Her spirit was shattered. She now knew what the word failure meant. All these things happened to her, made her to be fighting or angry with everybody that talked to her or had anything doing with her. She had conflict with so many people around her because she could not have power to control her condition at the particular time.
My grandmother stated further that I should believe this, if two people are fighting for one thing, one party will win and other party will lose. She said I should have it at the back of my mind that if people and I are pursing one thing in life, is either I win or lose that thing. I always use this win-lose approach in the very beginning of life. If all we can use this approach in our daily life, there will be nothing call conflict or disagreement among each other or one another and we are going to live in peace. We must not have grudges against one another and must have the mind of forgiveness.
Moreover, she made mention of collaboration approach by finding some solution that can satisfy the need all conflicting parties. It is to work together toward a mutually acceptable solution and integrative high concern for personal goals as well as relationships. This leads to win and win approach. She also taught me that I should use accommodation approach in dealing with disagreement that came to my way in life. This involves high cooperation and how confrontation to plays down differences and stresses commonalities. It is a good approach once I accept that it is wrong and I have a lot to lose and little to gain. The introduction of compromising approach is important at times whereby I should have it in mind that I lose thing that I have been fighting for and my other party also loses that thing too. This approach will confront the conflict fully and cooperatively by creating a more satisfying solution.
In my grandmother conclusion, she pressed to me to keep peace in any relationship that I found myself: I should not abandon conflict but pursue it to resolution, I should not recycle conflict, and once resolved but let it go and get back to your life, I should not ignore conflict but address it and make amendment, I should not exaggerate conflict but solve it with the least possible publicity and public scrutiny and I should not fence myself in by conflict but take two or three witnesses required that also open to reproof and correction.
Philippians 4:2. Peace making. She pleaded with me that I should be a peacemaker and introduce conflict management or resolution techniques in anything I do by recognizing and managing conflicts. “Peace cannot be kept by force; it can only be achieved by understanding.”
Mosques and churches get into conflict with each other or one another. Governments and people get into conflict. Pastors, Alfas and lay people get into conflict. Volunteers in ministry organizations find themselves in conflicts.
I learned all these from my grandmother, and I had been using them to manage my life and I have become peaceful man in my life. The question now comes to you. How can you achieve peace in your homes, offices, communities, states, nations and the world in general? Peace must be an expanding field of professional practice which the whole world needs to emulate. I need to say that the international governments must hire practitioners trained in conflict and peace analysis. The polytechnics, colleges and universities worldwide need to offer programs of study pertaining to conflict and peace research, analysis and practice. If we can see people that can teach everybody in the whole world on how to make peace with each other or one another, the whole world we are living in will have peace and there will be no cold war that we are experiencing now at different countries. My grandmother used to tell me that i need to see things and pretend as if I do not see anything and need to hear things and pretend as if I do not hear anything in order to be a peaceful person in life. She also said that peace, peace and peace achieves many good things in life while conflicts or disagreement achieves nothing but life destruction which may not be regained again in life.