On love and war :

Last night, I heard someone speak on the topic of change, emphasizing that in order to instigate change, there must be genuine desire to change.

As my day progressed, I realized that I desire a healthy way to approach, discuss, and deal with conflict.

By living in the present tense, it means that I live in the now and will continue to live on through the future; I am separate from my past, because it is behind me, and I can be different. I can choose to change.

From this point on, I choose to approach all future conflict with these things in mind:

1. Approach conflict with an an attitude of kindness, compassion, and humility, seeking to keep actions and words Christ-centered, life-giving, and glorifying to Him
2. Keep conflict between me and the other individual (i.e. no gossiping to others, allowing others to gossip to me)
3. Refrain from yelling, raising voice, talking loudly, or exercising any other form of counter-productive tone
4. If a moment needs to be taken to to calm down, verbally express the desire to leave the room and return ten minutes from that point
5. Agree to disagree with other individual while maintaining mutual respect
6. If any of these boundaries are disrespected by others, reserve the right to remove self from said situation
7. LOVE

I may not be able to change others, but I can change myself and abide by the list above. I will not attempt or try to do these things, but will do these things. I may sometimes fail, but I will not let that failure define me or who I am, but will instead allow it to motivate me to continue to change and persevere.

The change process starts:

Now.