Let’s be frank. Conflicts arise. And when they do and it comes to resolutions, it’s a marshy water out there!  But as remarked by an extraordinarily cultivated gentleman whom I knew, “Manners are there for when you need them (and amusingly he added, only then).” And while it has been observed that “manners maketh the man“, I contend we already have within us the requisite knowledge.

To my thinking when it comes to the Rules of Conduct there is no better or more convenient leader than oneself. This is so because the governance of one’s personal conduct is rooted not in alternative fuzzy external behaviour codes (such as that promoted by legends of reprisal, righteousness, contradiction, posturing, popularity or even religion) rather one’s actions and responses are controlled by elemental nutritions that foment clearly and often with an astonishing propriety within oneself. In short we know what we should do in spite of what we might wish to do. The irony is that if we do what we’d like to do instead of what we know we should do, we end being hopelessly displeased with ourselves and may even regret our misconduct. That despondent complication then leads to further disruption quite apart from the original complaint. It is thus that a minor bruise or a graze becomes an open wound or a suppurate cut.  The key to success is to act properly from the outset and before the onset. It will spare both you and others unnecessary grief.

The relevance of primary conduct is that, like any fluid transaction, it stimulates useful and palatable results. As much as you may initially be consumed by vindictiveness or other ingenuity of damage, the target is success not defeat. The reward of following one’s own leadership is restful settlement. As my late father once predictably observed of my undergraduate choice to study Philosophy instead of Economics, “It’s your bed. You make it. You sleep in it.” To his surprise (and frankly my own) later in law school I saw that analysis of deductive reasoning is not dissimilar to legal analysis . The Major Premise, the Subordinate Premise and the Conclusion; for example, If A = B, and B = C, then A = C.  All part of the formula for the search of knowledge (from Greek philosophia “love of knowledge, pursuit of wisdom; systematic investigation”). Likewise in the management of one’s day-to-day behaviour, the pursuit of one’s initial resolve is the most desirable and the least objectionable approach for a multitude of unanticipated reasons. Otherwise the fallout of miscalculation can be horrendous, sometimes to the point of psychological ruin.

It is this identical path of thought which predicts the primary activity to be pursued in one’s personal conduct. Failure to do so is guaranteed to be fraught with “a logical subterfuge from which there is but one escape “. That subterfuge and its escape are clouded with annoyance. One becomes annoyed with oneself for going against the grain; and annoyed with the other party for putatively having caused the annoyance in the first place. What however is more certain is that, at a minimum, both parties are to blame for any disagreement. It is normally by any account an all-embracing kerfuffle and mental and emotional obstacle.

We must however ensure that our escape from conflict is not crowned with the uncomplimentary and distasteful invitation afterwards to “Crawl!”  But even if it were, the greater peril is to have submitted to the miscalculation in the beginning.  Follow the leader.