Friends, siblings, business partners, lovers and mates need to learn the art and skill of fair fighting. If you don’t, you’ll fight unfairly and that is destructive. If you don’t fight, you’ll miss the healthy benefits of fighting.

It is okay when we hear of a person who fought and struggled or strived to get to the top of their field of endeavor. We cheer for the person who has won their fight with cancer. We don’t so much like to root for the friend who argues with or contends with another friend of ours. Kids don’t applaud their parents when fighting. Mothers, unlike football coaches, don’t video tape their children’s quarrels with each other and afterwards give them pointers as to how they could do better arguing. What’s going on here?

So long as we follow the rules of the game, it’s good to have a competitive, heated tennis match with an opponent. The same holds true for an emotional match with our spouse. It toughens us, makes us better in that arena, and teaches us a great deal about the other person and how they function. Fighters know each other about as well, perhaps better, than passionate lovers.

Relationship conflict helps to keep up boundaries. With healthy boundaries we are better able to co- exist with another person and not be threatened or insecure. Basically when we speak of a person winning a struggle with cancer, what has happened is not the elimination of cancer cells from their body. Rather, the cancer has been put in its place, back into the low level of prevalence to keep the body balanced and healthy. We all have cancer cells to some extent in us at all times. Healthy struggle with cancer cells keeps them from growing too fast and taking over parts of the body.

Fair fighting in relationships ventilates grievances so resentment stays down, increases coping abilities and keeps power differentials at manageable levels so that the relationship stays balanced. Done right, conflict can solve problems and fix disorder. Here are some rules for fair fighting:

When you turn your back on the current of your life, you are on your own. You are coming at life believing that you are strong enough, powerful enough on your own. The other way is to come at life from a place of humility.

Do I put living a spiritual life ahead of deadlines and achieving some tangible goal? Silence certainly plays a role. Being in touch with the spiritual current means first being able to listen to oneself, being in sync with oneself. You need silence to get there.

Chapter Two
I walk down the same street. There is a deep hole in the sidewalk. I pretend I don't see it. I fall in again. I can't believe I am in the same place. But, it isn't my fault. It still takes a long time to get out.

Chapter Three
I walk down the same street. There is a deep hole in the sidewalk. I see it is there. I still fall in ...it's a habit. My eyes are open. I know where I am. It is my fault. I get out immediately.

Chapter Four
I walk down the same street. There is a deep hole in the sidewalk. I walk around it.

"FOR THE INDIVIDUAL, ADOBE
is something from a past that reminds us that we must pay careful attention to the context of our lives, as we must to earthen structures. An adobe building, from foundation to roof, is a metaphor for attending to our lives and those protected by it, walls.
Left unchecked, a trickle of water from a neglected roof can bring down an entire wall. With a bit of attention and love, like families, adobe structures have lasted generations, in fact centuries."
from Adobe: Building and Living with Earth , Larkin and Romero, 1994.