I for one used to love arguments. I would start some just for the heck of it. I thrived in the nature of belittling people and feeding my ego. This is probably typical of most people. The average person has something called pride and no one likes to take a blow to it. Especially, us Koreans, our ego and pride is our code of life. Guys especially cannot take a single smudge to their pride, it awakens the egotistical beast within.
Ever since 2006, I never had a serious argument. Why? I generally avoid them at all costs. I actually hate arguing now. I've never argued with my parents my whole life but I've argued with my youth pastor and classmates a lot so I have my fair share of that experience. Recently though my argumental side was revived on couple of occasions. This time it wasn't my youth pastor, it wasn't my classmates, it's always with my girlfriend.
Sabrina and I have been together for I forget how long but in that time we've had our fair share of arguments. Even though we bicker all the time, it never gets serious. When we do argue though, its a different story. For one thing, the very very rare times we fight, it always lasts a long time. 2 hours min and no maximum. Sometimes it spans days. Certain qualities come out that I regret but thats pretty normal during arguments. Our fights have always been very biblical as well. In that sense they get pretty damn intense. If I was a bystander watching in on our fights, it'll probably hinder my faith thinking "how can christians fight like this??". I've noticed that for the first hours of the argument we both are blinded by our pride and unwillingness to give into the other opinion, let alone hear it. It starts off with a disagreement, elevates to a new level of stubbornness, escalates by getting very biblical, plateaus back and forth with "I'm right, you're wrong", and suddenly dips into mutual agreement and reconciliation. Even though these are times I wish I could go back and erase from my life, I'm very grateful for these instances. The rare 2 or 3 times we've fought, bring out our worst, trying to topple one another have in fact built my character. When I killed my pride and actually listened to what she was saying, it was all making sense, it sunk in. Vice versa she realized it as well. In the end, its always something very stupid. You realize you could have saved yourself from all this trouble just by killing your pride for 15 seconds.
Pride is the root of all sin. Yes indeed it is. If you take a step back and analyze every situation without your pride, its plain simple to solve. 100% of the world's problems would be solved if people would give 15 seconds of cease-fire. Yet we human beings are incapable of letting our pride sit for 15 seconds. I wish for a day that all people can get rid of their pride and listen to each other. Then the world would be such a better place. But that day will never come so as long as Satan has a grip on this world. Not everyone will agree with 15 seconds of cease-fire, but it definitely changed my life.
Maybe even your's.
"Pride goes before destruction" -Aesop
"Arguments are not about who's right, but what's right" -Anonymous
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