Daily Inspiration 6-25-15

"One of the keys

to all drama

is conflict. 

If there isn't any conflict, 

there isn't any drama." 

"Nothing worthwhile 

happens without conflict." 

-- James Patterson 

Last weekend on Facebook, I saw a link to a class put on by James Patterson, who is considered the world's most successful author, on a site called MasterClass.com. I immediately signed up and took the entire course with 22 videos that same day. It was quite interesting and worth far more than the cost of admission. There are some other courses on there like an acting course by Dustin Hoffman. Very inexpensive too. End of commercial.

It's interesting and funny to me that I might watch 22 videos on a subject with thousands of words spoken, and have a handful of them reach out and grab my attention. And, it happens a lot, then I must stop and write it down. This is the case with the two quotes above. I found them fascinating and insightful in our daily lives.

Of course, in James Patterson's case, he is creating conflict on purpose to create drama and create, as he calls it, "commercial fiction." He also wants to draw people in, keep them guessing and moving all the way to the end. This he does.

I was thinking more along the lines of how we feel as we move through our lives. We all want to feel good, yet quite often people end up choosing to feel anxious, angry, unhappy, depressed, melancholy, worried, and much more that causes them to feel bad or not good. What causes that? It is conflict. 

Conflict is having animosity, feeling different than, feeling strife, having bad blood, feeling antagonistic, in opposition to, competition, having a dispute, having hostility about someone or something, disagreeing with, struggling, being disturbed by, and more. If you're alive, there will be conflict in your life.

It is here for a reason and it can either be beneficial as in the second quote, "nothing worthwhile happens without conflict," or it can become such a part of our lives that we are ruled by it. That would be a lot of drama, and I'll bet that you know someone that is just that way, and you can easily see how obvious it is once you know what you're looking for.

A more beneficial word for conflict is contrast. The value of that is to see what we do not want, causing us to know better what we do want. As we realize by how we feel that where we are and have the awareness to know that what is happening, we can choose what we do want and move toward it by choosing better feeling thoughts.

This process need not have drama. It need not have pain. Though the contrast may cause us to not feel as good, that is perfect guidance to help us on our way to what we do want instead. As James said, "nothing worthwhile happens without conflict." Just change the last word to contrast to soften it, but either way, it is true enough. The results of that are determined by how we respond to the conflict or contrast. Only we are in charge of that.


If You Step In Some Nasty Stuff, The Only Thing That Really Matters Is How Long You Stand There. 

Spread Some Joy Today--Keep moving toward joy. It's what you really want, so keep moving.