Constructive Confrontation

I attended this class today; which was scheduled to be on Monday but was cancelled due to poor attendance which was also partly caused by the bad weather; it was raining very heavily on Monday morning.

Well, guess there's always a silver lining beneath every cloud...this class was definitely fun!!~ The instructor was so cool...basically added to spicing up the class teaching and learning environment. They should definitely have more instructors like these; gets the class going and makes everyone eager to participate in the sharing and discussion. Sometimes it's just the little things that gets a person or a class going:)

Now, constructive confrontation basically revolves around the process of making yourself heard and how to confront a problem or to talk to your peers and superiors in an effective way, making yourself heard and at the same time, not offending others. This particular instructor is pretty funny and I find it amusing that he used the examples of couples; somehow the men and women relationship topics always works in attracting the attention. Pretty interesting and hilarious....he brought up this issue of a married couple; an accountant wife and a civil engineer. The wife vowed to be a good homemaker and thus prepared the meals for the husband daily after work. However, one day, the light bulb in the kitchen broke. The wife, on the other hand decided not to tell the husband and cooked under the dim light. Her intention? To test the husband's sensitivity to her and how much he cared about her.

To her dismay, she ended up cooking under that condition for a month. Finally, she resorted to directly confront her husband and to question his ignorance to the matter. So, this is where we have to think; why do these 2 people have such difference in their thinking?

There were all sorts of answers coming from the class(of course); one being that women always make a big fuss out of little things, family background or upbringing environment, men tend to be more direct and straightforward while women prefers the beating around the bush approach, the husband does not go to the kitchen( conservative values), etc etc.

The answer? (This is based on a real-life situation) - The husband was brought up in a single parent environment with a widowed mother who man handles all matters at home and her main focus was on the kids to be equipped with the proper education for a bright future ahead. As such, they do not meddle with the little chores at home which will be handled by her. With the cultivation of this mindset, it is of no surprise that the husband only prioritizes on his career and achievements and does not put his mind and finger to the matters at home since he was used to his mom taking care of matters like these.
The wife, on the contrary, is brought up in a conservative environment and thus had the mindset instilled that men are to do all the hard work while women do all the cooking and washing.

So, you can see that this all actually attributes to the environmental effects and also the culture.
Confronting sometimes may not be rude or loud; it's actually a channel for communication. When we confront, we are actually letting the other person know what we think or how we feel instead of assuming everyone knows.

Besides, to be able to communicate is better than not....so who cares about arguments and quarrels?
I still remember back in high school; the motto that the scouts held was "Never argue; nobody ever wins an argument"....hahaa....maybe they should take this class....if you never argue...you'll never know:) Most importantly, argue with an objective and know clearly what you are arguing about...else, why waste time?