The Anatomy of PEACE. RESOLVING THE HEART OF CONFLICT. The Arbinger Institute

hmael's descendants," Lou answered with a forced non¬chalance. "The Arab people."
Yusuf nodded. "Another characteristic of conflicts such as these," he said, gesturing toward the board, "is the propensity to demonize others. One way we do this is by lumping others into lifeless categories—bigoted whites, for example, lazy blacks, crass Americans, arrogant Europeans, violent Arabs, manipulative Jews, and so on. When we do this, we make masses of unknown people into objects and many of them into our enemies."
"I'm not making anyone into my enemy, Yusuf. I'm merely naming those who have declared me to be their enemy."
ESCALATION
• 55
"And all Arabs have done this?" Yusuf asked. "And they have named you, Lou Herbert, as their enemy?"
At first, Lou was beaten back by this question, but then he leaned back in his chair, a sudden air of rediscovered confi¬dence dancing in his eyes. "Why do you insist on changing the subject?"
"I don't think I have, Lou."
"Oh yes you have," Lou countered. "You keep answering my questions with unrelated questions. You don't want to go where my questions are directed, so you create mirages else¬where."
Yusuf didn't say anything.
"I'll tell you what, Yusuf. I'll answer your questions after you answer mine."
"Fair enough," Yusuf said. "What would you like me to answer?"
7 • The Right Thing and the Right Way
"Okay, first of all," Lou began, "I asked whether it makes a difference in a conflict if one side is in the right and the other in the wrong. So I ask you again: doesn't that matter?"
"Yes," Yusuf replied, "it does matter. But not the way you think it does."
"What is that supposed to mean?"
"Well, Lou," Yusuf responded measuredly, "have you ever been in a conflict with someone who thought he was wrong?"
Lou thought of Cory and the boardroom meeting with his five mutinous executives.
"No," he answered coolly. "But that doesn't mean they're not."
"True," Yusuf agreed. "But you see, no conflict can be solved so long as all parties are convinced they are right. Solution is possible only when at least one party begins to consider how he might be wrong."
"But what if I'm not wrong!" Lou blurted.
"If you are not wrong, then you will be willing to consider how you might be mistaken."
"What kind of twisted riddle is that?"
Yusuf smiled. "It only seems like a riddle, Lou, because we are so unaccustomed to considering the impact of what is below our words, our actions, and our thoughts. There are two ways to seize Jerusalem or to engage in almost any other strategy or be¬havior, as Avi discussed with you. Which means there is a way I can be wrong even if taking Jerusalem is the best—even the
56
THE RIGHT THING AND THE RIGHT WAY • 57
right—thing to do. If I don't remain open to how I might be mis¬taken in this deeper way, I might live out my life convinced I was on the right side of a given conflict, but I won't have found lasting solutions.
"The deepest way in which we are right or wrong," he con¬tinued, "is in our way of being toward others. I can be right on the surface—in my behavior or positions—while being entirely mistaken beneath, in my way of being. I might, for example, yell at my kids about the importance of chores and be entirely cor¬rect about their importance. However, do you suppose I invite the help and cooperation I am wanting from them when my heart is at war in my yelling?"
Lou's mind reverted to Cory and to how he had found it dif¬ficult to speak a civil word to him for nearly two years.
"So, Lou," Yusuf continued, "in your conflicts with others, even if you are convinced you have been right in the positions you've taken, can you say with confidence that you have also been right in your way of being toward them? Can you say that you have been seeing them as people rather than as objects in your disagreements, and that your heart has therefore been at peace rather than at war toward them?"
Lou, still silent, slumped slightly in his chair. He knew that the answer to this question was obvious to everyone in the room. Not only was his heart not at peace toward others, it seemed too often to revel in interpersonal warfare.
This thought transported him back in memory once more.
Lou had grown up in Athens, New York, a picturesque town located on the Hudson River 120 miles north of Manhattan and 30 miles south of Albany. His father was an apple farmer who worked around the clock seven days a week to eke out a meager living. They lived in a Civil War-era white clapboard farm¬house that sat only fifty yards off the west bank of the Hudson.
58
• THE HEART OF PEACE
Their farm was a rather modest ten acres, but it was the pretti¬est parcel in Greene County, occupying a peninsula that jutted out into the Hudson. From the top floor of the farmhouse, one could see the Catskill Mountains rising above the trees to the west. The setting was so beautiful that Lou's father could never bring himself to leave, even though he could have run a far grander operation elsewhere.
Through Lou's youth, the family had owned only one vehicle—a red 1942 farm truck with a matching red four-foot- tall wooden bay on the flatbed. The truck rattled and coughed like a ninety-year-old chain-smoker. Lou grew up thinking that the shoulder of the road was merely a second lane, as his father nearly always hugged the grasses that lined the streets in order to let other vehicles pass.
It was no small thing, then, when the Herberts purchased a new car. Lou was sixteen at the time, and he was eager to show the car to his friends in town. The day after his father brought it home, Lou asked if he could take it for some errands. Sensing his son's excitement, Lou's father readily agreed.
Lou ran out to the driveway and started it up. The low hum of the engine exhilarated him and he stroked the dash in antic¬ipation. Just then he remembered he had left his wallet in the house and ran in to get it. When he raced back out, to his hor-ror, the car had vanished! Lou remembered his feeling of panic, and then the awful thought that the car might have rolled down the slope of the approach and spilled off the driveway and into the Hudson.
Didn't I put it back in park? Lou had screamed in his mind as he ran down the drive. Didn't I set the brake?
Where the lane turned, sure enough, fresh tire tracks headed down the hill toward the river. Lou sprinted to the edge
THE RIGHT THING AND THE RIGHT WAY • 59
of the bluff and looked some twenty feet down. There looking back at him were the headlights of his father's car. He stood frozen as the water slowly sucked the car under the surface and out of sight.
Lou remembered walking numbly up to the house, won¬dering how he could break the news to his father. He entered the farmhouse and saw his father facing away from him in his favorite wingback chair. He was reading the newspaper. For a moment, Lou considered quietly exiting, and his mind raced with thoughts of running away.
"Forget something else?" his father had asked without turn¬ing around.
"No," Lou had responded, feeling cornered. There was no avoiding it now, as his father knew he was in the house. There was nowhere to hide.
"Dad," he had said, his voice breaking. "I — " He couldn't go on. "I—"
He gasped for air and the courage to tell what happened.
"Dad, I—the car—" he stammered as his chest heaved be¬tween words. "I think I must have forgotten to set the brake," he blurted. "It's in the river, Dad. The car is in the river! I'm so sorry," he said, bursting into sobs. "I'm so sorry!"
What happened next seared itself so deeply into Lou's mem¬ory he was sure that should he ever get Alzheimer's or some sim¬ilar disease, this would be the last memory to leave him.
He remembered trembling while waiting for his father to re¬spond. His father didn't turn to him but still sat holding the news¬paper wide before him. He then slowly reached his left hand to the top corner of the right-hand page and turned it to continue reading. And then he said it, the sentence Lou would never for¬get. He said, "Well, I guess you'll have to take the truck then."
60
• THE HEART OF PEACE
As Lou remembered this, he sat stunned anew. There had been no retribution, no lecture, no visible anger. Just, "Well, I guess you'll have to take the truck then."
Lou realized in this moment that his father's heart was at peace toward Lou, a peace so powerful that it couldn't be in¬terrupted even by a provocation so great as the sudden loss of a hard-earned car. Perhaps in his wisdom he knew Lou was now the last person who would ever put another car into the river. Perhaps in that instant he divined that a lecture would serve no purpose, and to start one would only hurt an already hurting son.
An already hurting son. Lou reeled at the thought. He had one of those too but had rarely spared the lecture. What have I become? he wondered silently. Why do I turn so quickly to war?
"I've seen him when he's that way, Yusuf," Carol said, her voice pulling Lou back from the trouble of his thoughts. "I've seen Lou when his heart is at peace. Many times, actually."
Lou turned to her, his mouth opening slightly in grateful surprise.
"Lou can be warm and helpful—despite what you've seen during much of today," she added, apologetically. After a mo¬ment's pause, she said, "Can I share a story?"
"Please," nodded Yusuf.
"Before that," she began, "I need to apologize to you, Miguel. It was unkind what I said earlier, about Ria having to do everything. It was terribly inconsiderate and presumptuous of me. I'm so sorry. I hope you can forgive me."
Miguel cleared his throat. "No worries," he smiled. "Forgot all about it."
"Thank you," Carol said. "I'm so sorry."
She turned back to the group. "Okay, so the story," she con¬tinued. "This won't be easy for me. I've never shared this with
THE RIGHT THING AND THE RIGHT WAY • 61
anyone, except Lou and one other person I'll tell you about. But I'm thinking it might be helpful for you—for everyone here—to hear this.
"For years in our marriage," she continued, "I carried a se¬cret. I was bulimic. And I was ashamed about it. I didn't want to let Lou down or to risk losing him or his love. So I never told him. Then something happened that awoke me to the possibil¬ity that I might be killing myself—not just emotionally and psy¬chologically but physically as well. I had been severely fatigued for a long time and finally went to see my doctor about it. She ran lots of tests and then asked me point-blank whether I had an eating disorder. At first I denied it. But when she showed me the test results and told me that my body was breaking down and that my health and perhaps even my life was at risk, I finally broke down myself. I told her the truth between sobs.
"But then came the hard part. I knew I had to tell Lou be¬cause this problem had morphed way beyond merely a physical ailment. I needed his help, and I couldn't go on keeping such a secret from him daily even if I didn't. So I told him, deathly wor¬ried that it might be the beginning of the end of our marriage.
"But it wasn't like that. I think he was hurt by the secret- keeping, but he didn't dwell on it. At least, not that I know of. His concern for me was immediate and overwhelming. I don't think I've ever been so grateful for anyone in my life as I was for him in that moment and the months that followed. We agreed that I would report to him every night about how I had done during the day. There were many days that I had to report meekly to him that I had stumbled. But stumble or not, he gen¬tly rubbed my back until I went to sleep. Somewhere amid the back rubs and his nonjudgmental listening to my troubles, my compulsion eventually left me. I haven't even been tempted toward bulimia since that time, which is now many years ago."
62
• THE HEART OF PEACE
As Carol shared her story, the atmosphere in the room be¬gan changing. Lou's face, which for much of the morning had been creased with impatience and acrimony, had softened. Carol herself seemed to come alive with a kind of personal con¬viction and confidence. And finally, Gwyn—Lou's most bitter rival to this point—had relaxed for the first time in an hour. The tension had drained from her face and limbs, and she leaned forward in interest rather than in belligerence. Elizabeth too seemed to be carrying herself differently, her earlier dispassion¬ate air having given way to concentrated attention. She listened intently to Carol.
"Anyway," Carol finished up. "I thought it might help to share that story. He's far from perfect," she said, with a gentle grin, "but fundamentally he's a good man. That's why I wanted to marry him and why I'm still glad about that, despite the chal¬lenge we sometimes are for each other."
Lou hung his head a bit. Some might have thought he had tired of attention that in the end must have seemed too effusive for his taste. In reality, however, he was feeling shame. He re¬membered well the experience Carol had related, but he knew he too rarely lived up to that ideal.
"Thank you, Carol, for sharing that," Yusuf said. "It's a won¬derful story. Thank you."
Carol nodded.
"Gwyn," he continued, "I'm curious. What did hearing that story do for you?"
Gwyn was caught off guard by the question and collected herself for a moment before responding. "I'm not sure what you mean."
"Did it influence your impression at all of Lou?"
Gwyn thought about that for a moment. "I suppose it did somewhat, yes."
THE RIGHT THING AND THE RIGHT WAY • 63
"Elizabeth?" Yusuf asked. "How about you? Did the story do anything for you?"
Elizabeth looked over at Lou for a moment before respond¬ing. "Yes, it did," she said.
"What did it do?"
She looked back at Yusuf. "It reminded me of someone," she answered softly, not volunteering more.
"So do the two