One of my goals in life is to reduce conflict. In order to do this I have a “main question” that I use to test my thoughts, words and actions against. It is a simple question with often profound answers revealed to me. The question is: What does love look like now?

All too often I believe I am on track when in fact I am simply caught in my emotional reaction. I am after all human and prone to emotional reactions. It is my inherent nature…smile. But luckily for me evolution has provided me the option of choosing not simply reacting.

Here is how I practically use my question technique. Let’s say I am driving. Let’s say another driver pulls in front of me without signaling while traveling in excess of the speed limit. In reality it scares me. As a male I often find it easy to transmute fear into anger. By posing my question at this moment in time two things happen. Firstly, I must examine my emotions and feelings. This is always a positive thing. It helps me to better understand Brad. The better I understand Brad the better able I am to express myself. Secondly, I immediately have to make a choice. While it might be fun to simply react sometimes it can often lead to conflict escalating and this would go against my prime directive “reduce conflict in the world”.

So the next time you want to challenge yourself to really live your values try coming up with a question you ask yourself that helps you the way “What does love look like now?” helps me and in the meantime feel free to borrow my question and use however and whenever you choose.