We were walking home from the grocery store in West Yorkshire, England, when a group of teenage boys blocked our path in a narrow alleyway. They hurled racist insults and told us to "go back home." My reaction was instantaneous: Stay quiet, avoid conflict, and get past them as quickly as possible. I grabbed my mother's arm, urging her to move with me. But she didn't.
We are told from childhood to "play nice," to keep the peace, to smooth things over. But what if this instinct toward harmony is actually holding us back? The real danger to our relationships, workplaces, and communities isn't conflict-it's indifference. Conflict, when engaged constructively, is the spark that ignites growth. It is the friction that polishes rough ideas into breakthroughs, the heat that forges raw ore into something enduring.