Conflict

Thus Spoke Zarathustra, III: On Old and New Tablets, 29.

"Why so hard?" the kitchen coal once said to the diamond. "After all, are we not close kin?"

Why so soft? O my brothers, thus I ask you: are you not after all my brothers?

Why so soft, so pliant and yielding? Why is there so much denial, self-denial, in your hearts? So little destiny in your eyes?

And if you do not want to be destinies and inexorable ones, how can you one day triumph with me?

And if your hardness does not wish to flash and cut through, how can you one day create with me?

For all creators are hard. And it must seem blessedness to you to impress your hand on millennia as on wax.

Blessedness to write on the will of millennia as on bronze—harder than bronze, nobler than bronze. Only the noblest is altogether hard.

This new tablet, O my brothers, I place over you: Become hard! "

Life is a struggle, from the moment we are born we must fight for our survival. Those of us lucky enough to have parents who can take care of their children are slowly eased into life, while others are put into the struggle much earlier in life. We fight because it is an obstacle to our goals, or just because we love to fight. Life is conflict, and we there is no way to erase conflict from our lives completely. No matter how much we try to shelter ourselves and others from conflict, it will always exist. Instead of trying to create an environment in which there is no conflict, we should try to focus on dealing with the conflict, and solve what problems we can to reduce the conflict.

Dealing with this wears us down over time, like the tide beating against a rockface. The small problems amplify our negative emotions and can drive us mad. Don't let the little things that can't be solved bother you.