"Mexican Stand Off" is defined by Wikipedia as 'a confrontation where no strategy exists that allows any party to achieve victory'.
These stand offs have been glamourised in many a spaghetti western movie since the invention of the genre and build up to exciting climaxes such as that in "The Gunfight at the OK Coral" or the grand finale of Sergio Leone's cinematic masterpiece, "The Good, the Bad and the Ugly", starring Clint Eastwood in arguably his most career defining, iconic role as 'Blondie' (The Man with No Name).
They can, however, emerge in a variety of ordinary day to day life situations, such as a fall out with a family member, a service provider or a fellow employee.
And they are a lonely business that can be incredibly stressful to everyone involved for a number of reasons.
Firstly, because it allows for no compromise, as the issue or disagreement remains unaddressed for the period of stand off.
And equally because neither person has the chance to get their perceived grievances off their chests or to be validated in any way by the other, so the passage of time creates increased anger and greater frustrations on all sides.
Consequently, the more time that elapses, the greater the danger increases of one of the participants to the stand off taking individual action which is reckless or irrational. Anyone who has watched the US hit series "Billions" (a fantastic drama, by the way) will have seen extreme examples of this in both a business and personal context.
This, in its turn, means the only people who tend to make hay out of Mexican Stand Offs are lawyers!
Therefore outside of the movies and box sets (like many things), they serve no useful or glamorous purpose.
A combination of ego and stubbornness often dictates that we stand our ground when there is truly no rational justification for doing so. This is the reason so many business negotiations sadly break down.
Yet is it incumbent on one party to a Mexican Stand Off to engage with the other and break the vicious circle at some point.
The secret to taking this step is to stop thinking in the 'victory' mindset referenced in the definition above, because this is no more mature than having a staring competition to see who blinks first, and to remove ego absolutely from the emotional equation in favour of a focus on progress and, if necessary, closure.
This has nothing to do with taking any sort of 'moral high ground'.
It is because in the end, even if a resolution cannot be found from engagement, total closure - whether of a relationship, an opportunity or even a life chapter as necessary - is preferable to the stress and stagnation that living in perpetual limbo carries with it.
For further coverage of issues raised in this post, please see our earlier posts entitled "The Dangers of Litigation to StressBusting™" and "Relax into the Dance of Life" if of interest.
Much conciliatory love, LouLoU™&MikeyM™ xxxx😚🙃😘 xxxx