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Marriage-Test.SolvingConflicts.comGet "back-to-the-basics" with your Marriage, Dating, Family, Friends, and/or Employment Relationships.Solving Conflicts LLC Presents: |
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Pure Gold: "Engaging, wise, and chock full of ideas ~ Paul Coleman, Psy. D., author of "How to Say It for Couples: Communicating with Tenderness, Openness, and Honesty" |
Can We Dance? “After reading this book, I have a new-found appreciation for the importance of really exploring myself to know what character qualities I need my mate to possess.” “I love the combination of information, reflection, and interaction with the arts. This approach is present, reflective and emotionally, spiritually provocative.” “Can We Dance? helped me to examine my beliefs, clarify my motivations, and analyze every step from friendship to a serious relationship. It is full of great tools that are both fun and immediately useful.” |
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Chapter Eleven Perhaps more than any other disaster in modern history, the sinking of the RMS Titanic has sparked more sorrow and shock; more debate and speculation; more books and movies; and more metaphorical lessons to learn than has any other tragedy. Shortly after that great tragedy, the designer of the Titanic said, "Everything that could reasonably be thought of was done ... in order to minimize the risk of ordinary accident." Have you ever felt like that? Perhaps you got up in the morning feeling confident and prepared. In your best judgment, you believed that you had done everything you could reasonably think of to do in order to minimize the risk of ordinary accident. Your ship was sailing along confidently. All the passengers were well cared for and comfortable. Then unexpectedly, out of nowhere, opposition arose ...an adversary was in your midst. You never practiced a situation like that in a drill. Then before you could blink your eyes, you realized that you had a gapping hole in your starboard side, water was gushing in, your ship was sinking, passengers were fleeing into the darkness of night in their lifeboats and you were all alone in your Captain's Chamber sinking with your ship. Perhaps you have never personally had a day like that, but I would venture to guess with a fair degree of certainty that at least you know somebody who has. While on the one hand, days like that can certainly reveal our character, you understand ...the stuff we are made of; on the other hand, our character may well determine the likelihood of having days like that. Are you confident that you currently have whatever it takes to avoid disaster? Captain Edward Smith of the Titanic apparently felt that way. That fateful day started out like any other day. Upon his expected arrival in New York , Captain Smith would retire from a long and uneventful career. Before that fateful day happened, Captain Smith said, "When anyone asks me how I can best describe my experience in nearly forty years at sea, I merely say, 'uneventful.' Of course, there have been winter gales, and storms and fog and the like. But in all my experience, I have never been in any accident ... or any sort worth speaking about. I have seen but one vessel in distress in all my years at sea. I never saw a wreck and never have been wrecked nor was I ever in any predicament that threatened to end in disaster of any sort." Is it possible ...dare we even think it ...that if Captain Smith had been using Solving Conflicts to work on his own character issues that the entire Titanic disaster could have been avoided? On that fateful night, Captain Smith was merely one good choice away from making a correct decision that would have relegated his ship, his crew, and his passengers a place in history that would have been uneventful and unknown. He was but one good choice away from delivering his passengers to safety and a history far different than the one we watch at the movies. Have you ever been just one good choice away from a day that would have been uneventful, smooth-sailing, and trouble-free? One thing that Captain Smith apparently lacked was the character quality of alertness. He had been warned seven times that very day of icebergs ...including a direct warning just 49 minutes earlier from the ship Californian just 19 miles away telling him that they were stopped and surrounded by ice. A man who was in possession of the character quality of alertness would have readily heeded those warnings and either stopped or changed course to avert potential disaster. In advance of that day, if Captain Smith had learned that he lacked in the quality of alertness, he might have seen a radically better outcome that historical day. Focusing on alertness might have been enough to inspire him with a greater sense of caution that fateful night. Simply put, are you truly doing all you can to avert disaster in your own life by focusing on the matters of your own character Qualities? Are you learning, little by little, to be helpful to the character growth of those people who are closest to you?
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