It is so easy to start a quarrel or even a fight with someone.

We all perceive things differently. Say a person just casually made a remark yet you interpreted differently and you were not happy about it. You might start showing your annoyance and thus possibly an argument.

We all have different preferences. Say your beau wanted to go for a horror movie and you preferred something light-hearted. But both did not compromise. You both were angry about each other and started quarreling.

We all place different expectations from others. Person A expected B to dedicate more effort towards completing a task. However Person B thought that he/she had done more than enough. A was agitated and disappointed and thus resulted a cold war between the two parties.

We all like attention and love from others, especially from our loved ones. You were having a tough day and were hoping to talk to your sweetheart to vent. Therefore you called. But your sweetheart was too busy caught up with work too. You could just blow up like that without being sensible trying to understand his/her situation.

There are really plenty of reasons to start a war, especially to people we are very close with; couples for example and some times even couples who have married for many years.

My dad is really not a romantic person. He hardly talks about love, romance and marriage in front of us. But there was something he once shared with me before and imprinted in my mind since. "When you get married next time, no matter what conflict arises with your husband, try not to make it worse and hence a quarrel or fight. You know? Quarrel and fight are just like breaking your china. Once it's broken, you can never mend the broken china as perfect as before. Even if a skillful pair of hands get to mend the broken pieces back, you'd find scratch marks on the mended piece."

I really love my dad's analogy. Although he was referring to marriage, I guess this try not to initiate or continue a fight/argument/quarrel principle applies to all type of relationship. It does damage a lot, way more than we could even imagine if there was a fight between two parties. Yes, sometimes a quarrel/fight might bring two parties closer once they reconcile. That is both parties were lucky for the first time. If they were constantly fighting and were reconciled later, do not be surprised that after an extended period, they would feel exhausted from the relationship. This would be what my dad referred as "scratch marks".

It is extremely difficult for us to agree with another individual and to avoid conflict. We all think differently; we all tend to think we are correct all the time. But when we begin to feel irritated, upset or disappointed with another person, why not start thinking this way? There are zillions of human beings on this planet, but somehow I managed to get to know this one person, shouldn’t we be thankful to this link? Better still if he/she whom we are apparently upset about is our loved one. Why do we want to fight with our loved ones? Did we also realize that life is actually short? Shouldn't we cherish every moment to be together with this person? Hopefully by going through all these thoughts, we would be able to cool ourselves down.

Of course getting along all the time with another person is never easy, especially if both are trying to share the same objective/work towards a certain goal. Of course, if you are bothered by certain issues, you should not keep quiet and keep all the grumbles to yourself. Bring the issue up nicely and openly to the other person. I’m sure if he/she shares similar goal as you and are concerned about your well-being, he/she would be really happy to discuss the issue with you. It is certainly more efficient and effective than resolving the issues through a fight. Man, you’d be lucky if either party was not injured from the fight!

Next time when you feel like initiating a war, think about the broken china philosophy. Hopefully it helps. And hopefully I’ll keep this in mind and put it into practice too.