Entry 11, Conflicts

  In the story of "Water of the Babylon", the main character John faced many different conflicts. John had faced many internal and external conflicts which delayed his completion of the journey. One example of an external conflict would be the panther which attacked him when he was walking towards East. He was battling the creature when he could've been walking, which then stalled time for him. An example of an internal conflict would the conquering the fear of going through the river to the Land of the Gods. When he stepped onto the raft, he had conquered his fear, his fear of the other side and the river the night before, and all the stories the holy book told him. He had conquered his fear and decided to go on to search for answers no one ever knows. I have had many conflicts in my life. The most recent and the most severe one would be me telling my friend that I actually like the girl he has been liking for a long time. This was the biggest and most difficult internal conflict I ever had to overcome. I had to tell him face to face, man to man, about the story of the girl and I. I had been thinking about how to tell that guy for a while about my feelings but it was very hard for me to think of a way of telling him. When I overcame the fear, I ended up telling him. Nothing really happened, our friendship didn't really change. I still feel sorry everyday for having to do this to him. I know he has lost trust in me, but what can I do? This conflict was very hard to overcome considering that he was one of my best friends, and I had to decide how to tell him and overcoming the fear of telling him. The most recent external conflict I had was all the way back in Shanghai when I was fighting with my parents about coming back to Taiwan. That conflicted lasted a while, I was childish and I did not want to move back at all. I had a fight with them, a long dispute which lasted many weeks and bittered our whole family relationship. I overcame that by just simply growing up, accepting the truth, telling myself that I have to move back no matter what. I think conflicts are what makes life interesting, although many of them are very hard to overcome and solve, but without conflicts, life would be as stale and boring as a wet carrot.