Friendship in the time of demonetization

The last few weeks since 8^th November have thrown some interesting situations and challenges. On the one hand, it has forced people to come up with ingenious solutions to manage cash flows.  Whatever time that has left one with, is then spent in social media or social circles debating the issue.  This has thrown up sticky situations, especially among friends and relatives if you hold a point of view different from the majority in that group.  A larger dilemma is when one finds oneself in conflict with a close friend / group of friends.  Well it is not that only demonetization can cause such conflict, but it has been a strong poke, following the Donald Trump vs Hillary Clinton debate in the US.

The dilemma is this: To be amenable to the point of surrendering the argument even if you feel otherwise or to be honest to yourself and the friendship and accept that you are probably never going to resolve this? This is assuming that one respects the friendship enough to not throw it away at the first sign of conflict.

John Gottman of the famous thin-slicing technique (that predicts if a couple will divorce with some 94% accuracy) states that a marriage can thrive even with unresolved issues, as long as it is not a deal breaker.  You only need to look at some of our older generation couples with arranged marriages to catch some amusing arrangements to manage their conflicts.  My parents manage their differing spiritual stands very practically, with my father dropping my mother till the temple doorstep, and collecting her back.

If a marriage can handle that, will a friendship also survive this? History has some interesting examples of friendships that thrived between people who had stark ideological differences.  The caring friendship between Saint Mother Theresa, the ardent Christian and the atheist Chief Minister Jyothi Basu was one of them. 

So, is it possible to sustain a friendship with differences of opinion? It requires courage and conviction and it will do well to remember the saying ‘’ Love is saying “I feel differently” instead of “you’re wrong.” It also requires some discipline to do and not do some things if you want to sustain the friendship. Top most among them is to separate the issue from the person and never attack the person.  And the best way of honouring a friendship is to listen and listen attentively, even if you have heard that angle hundreds of times and you have a strong response for that.   Sticking to facts and not getting carried away by hype certainly helps (which means you end up junking half the stuff that turns up in What’s app, or at least those that cannot be validated).  Finally, believe, convey and convince that your friendship is built on values that transcend these issues (that is, if this is the case; if not, you have a choice to make!).

I have my hopes high in retaining friendships in these times, egged on by own experience of happily pursuing a career in a field which would not be my family’s choice, but they respect and support that I feel differently!