March 19-25 / Question 2

Personally, It takes quite a lot to get me worked up. As discussed in chapter 8, I don’t so much experience anger as frustration. To whatever extent I do get angry, I will either “anger it in” if I feel it’s insignificant, or “anger control” it if I think it’s a problem worth addressing. I figure this is just a personality thing. I’ve always kept a cool head, this has been true for as long as I can remember. Anger was never something I struggled with, however, it has been a problem for other people I’ve known. Whenever I’d see them “lose it” over something, I could sympathize with their emotions, but couldn’t relate to how they were expressing it. It made no sense to me.

    In my opinion, a common theme of these “anger-outers” is their tendency to react immediately and aggressively, often over mundane issues. Common is their willingness to say whatever sort of damaging thing that first comes to their mind, blind to the consequences of their actions. Eventually things will cool down, and sometimes “anger-outers” will, in retrospect, apologize for their misbehavior. This is all very well and good, however, too often the damage has already been done.

-Ben

Question 3

Chapter seven references both “distress” and “hyperstress”; distress being when we feel as if were not in control, and hyperstress is when we take on too many tasks at once. While they each have their own definitions and triggers, often you will see them on display at once. Hyperstress can lead to distress if the individual feels overwhelmed and overworked. Sometimes I picture managing multiple stressors like spinning plates. You can only spin so many at once before the whole system comes crashing down. Hyperstress is caused by being pulled in all different directions at once, your attention is directed in too many different places and you loose focus. This loss of control can leave you feeling as if things are “happening to you”, like you lack the power to handle the situation on your own, therefore causing distress.

-Ben

Week 7 / Post 1

1). I Insist on applying the First Solution whenever I’m out with co-workers or school friends on the weekends. We may have a project we’re working on together, but fun time is our time. Leave work talk at work, and likewise, leave school talk at school.

The Second Solution is an argument for having a “playful” mindset. “How we think about matter affects the way we perceive the events we experience.” I see this as being all about your attitude and how it can effect the outcome of a situation.

Here’s an example:

    Last summer I spent a week in New Zealand. My arrival happened to coincide with a severe and unexpected snow storm, causing much frustration and overnight power outages. When I arrived at my hotel, the concierge informed me that a paperwork error had cost me my reservation. Due to the power outage, he couldn’t even access his computer system to find me another room.

    In keeping this “playful mindset”, I chose to see my predicament as being funny. I knew this would make for a great story once I got home. I trusted they weren't going to have me sleep in the snow, knowing that the situation would work itself out somehow. It did, and I wound up in a better room than I had originally booked (free of charge).

-Ben

Chapter 6 / Question 3

    On the topic of harmful conflict climates and defensive behavior; at the very bottom of page 113 lists a series of behaviors juxtaposed against one another. Midway down the list it labels “Neutrality” as a cause for defensiveness, and it’s opposite being “Empathy”. In other words, neutrality breeds defensiveness, while empathy breeds supportiveness.
    At first, this stuck me as odd... Why would neutrality lead to defensiveness? After all, wouldn’t neutrality be, well, neutral? Then I began to think back to the various conflict situations I have been involved in over the years. I remembered specific examples of me growing frustrated when I felt as if my concerns weren’t being understood or fully appreciated. I remember one such occasion when a “neutral” third party intervened to settle a dispute between me and a co-worker. His best efforts to be neutral made me even more frustrated because he lacked any empathy for our situation. I grew defensive because I felt as if he didn’t properly understand my concerns. He was so focused on being impartial that his demeanor came off as robotic and uncaring.
    This would have been much better handled if, instead of a defensive conflict climate, he was able to manage our dispute with equal amounts of empathy for both our situations.

-Ben

Chapter 6 / Question 2

Eventually all of us will wind up as either the powerful or the powerless in an “unbalanced power relationship”. It may not necessarily be within the context of an interpersonal relationship, or even a romantic one. Chances are (and I know this to be true for me), the most common type of unbalanced power relationships we engage in is that of the subordinate/boss dynamic. Given our relative age as college students, most of us occupy positions, to a greater or lesser extent, that require us to take orders from, or answer to, a supervisor or superior.
    This type of command structure is near universal in both the private and public sectors. It’s this way for a reason - because it’s effective. For most any organization to run smoothly we need leaders and followers both acting cooperatively, not competitively, to get the job done.
    Personally speaking, I’m OK with having “less power” in the unbalanced power structure, so long as the people above me exercise compassion and fairness in their approach. Some people will have more power, other less.
    However, the inescapable truth is that everybody reports to somebody. The “unbalanced power structure” is largely a product of our own limited perspective. The private may disagree with having to answer to his sergeant, but often forgets that his sergeant reports to a lieutenant, and a lieutenant to a captain, so on and so forth.

-Ben

Chapter 6 / Question 1

    Trust is defined in our textbook as, “The belief that another is benevolent or honest toward the trusting individual, and that the other persons caring transcends any direct benefits the other receives as a result of caring” (111).
    I would consider myself a trusting individual, not to an unhealthy extent of course, but someone who has a good head on his shoulders and who is aware when I’m being mislead. I choose to surround myself with people whom I have confidence in, people who I feel I can trust. Another way of putting it would be to say, I see trust as the degree to which I can feel vulnerable around them.
    The only times I’ve truly lost trust in someone weren’t because of how they acted towards me, rather it was me witnessing how they behaved around other people. I once was buddies with a guy who I felt was a trustworthy source to turn to for personal advice. Although he never disclosed any of this information, nor to my knowledge acted inappropriately upon it, I heard casual the way in which he spoke of close friends and family members, often times using personal information behind their backs which could’ve damaged their reputation. My trust in him was lost after I realized that this gossip served no real purpose outside entertaining his friends. I thought, “If this is how he talks about others, what is he saying about me?”. The lack of judgement and poor discretion caused me to longer consider him worthy of my trust.

-Ben