We laughed at that incident and forgot it. But suddenly it popped up in my mind and revealed a greater truth. The incident I mention is a trivial one. I was standing in the common bathroom in our hostel, brushing. Ravi enters as David is filling his bucket with hot water. Thinking that David would only take half bucket of hot water to mix with ordinary water and bath, Ravi moves David’s bucket and places his. Ravi moves away from that place to take soap from his room. After coming back, he was casually chatting with David.
“Why are you not taking bath David?” I asked casually, curious to know why he is still standing.
“I want to fill the bucket to the brim” he replied.
I could see the shock in Ravi’s face when he uttered, “I thought you are done that is why I moved your bucket away and kept mine to fill”.
“Why didn’t you tell you are not done, David?” I asked.
“Oh! I thought he wanted to bath first” he said. We laughed at the misunderstanding. David left as Ravi poured some water from his bucket and filled David’s to the brim.
This incident came to my mind after sometime and revealed a great truth. If this thing had not been talked openly and resolved, David would have had the misunderstanding that Ravi is despising him. This misunderstanding would grow into hatred and he would be looking forward to get even. When he does that, Ravi would think that he had been treated badly and would look for opportunities to retaliate. In this way, misunderstanding breeds conflict.
Take any conflict, great or small. Each party would claim that they are right and they had been mistreated by the other party. The truth is lost in the accusing words. Only when they sit with open mind and talk about these issues which are disturbing and even embarrassing at times, they would be able to resolve conflict amicably. The origin of conflict would be a trivial thing as I just mentioned, but if we let it grow it would become a gigantic mountain which we would never be able to overcome. The small seed germinates. It branches out in different directions. It becomes strong by rooting deep in the soil. In this stage we become a paranoid. We are suspicious of the other party and interpret each of that person’s action in a negative way. In this way we make them to be our sworn enemies. The tiny misunderstanding which started the whole process is lost by other minute details of ‘hurts’.
Our response to this truth should be a one of humbleness. If we suspect that someone is mistreating us, we need to be patient to see whether they are really intending it. If possible it would be better if we talk it over. It could bring a solution to the conflict which is brewing. Secondly we need to be very careful in our actions. We need to be conscientious so that our words and deeds would not be misunderstood and misinterpreted. We can try our best to do that. But we also need to be aware that sometimes it just doesn’t happen. Ultimately we need to submit our deeds and words, significant and inconsequential, in God’s hands. In this way if we try to rededicate ourselves every day and every hour, we would live an honest life before God and decent and pleasurable life before fellow men.
