If you take the high road and I take the low road

If there ever was an important lesson to learn in life it's this: ultimately you're responsible for yourself, and really only yourself.  I don't mean this in an hyper-individualistic sense, but rather that as individuals, we are ultimately responsible for our own choices and decisions.  However, herein lies the frustration.  Autonomy carries with it a limiting factor.  Just as you are the captain of your own destiny, those other ships twinkling in the night have someone else at the helm.  Persuasion, trickery, coercion, and deceit are fundamentally limited as they ultimately rely on the consent, mistake, acceptance, or acquiesce of another.  Conflict is a product of individualism.  It's inevitable.  Rarely do people's plans mesh perfectly together; and if they are - pinch yourself, you're probably just dreaming.  It's not a bad thing.  Much like wind disturbing water makes it seem like the sky is dancing on the water's surface, variety makes life all the more interesting.  A lot more interesting than the alternative, lockstep restriction.

Besides, there's not much we could do about it anyways.  Imagine how astronomical it would be to get everyone to agree on everything.  Just to put it in perspective, imagine how hard it would be to get yourself to agree on the same thing after some period of time.  Unless you happen to own a time machine, have been travelling at near light speed, or were frozen (all very unlikely), you are probably a different person to some degree from only a few years ago.  Duplication of thought- imagine what it would take.  Thought processes are the product of electrical and chemical reactions in our brain.  These reactions result from and impress upon the external world in a intricate interplay.  To end up with the same result would require the same external stimuli perceived in the same way, and processed by the same system.  But our minds are products of the past, so that would have to be accounted for to.  See where I'm going?  If not impossible, improbable.  Highly improbable.  The amazing differences between people can be easily summed up in our eyes.  While the iris is such a small area, the extreme uniqueness only serves to underscore our individuality.  (So technically David Bowie counts as two people, although it should be more considering how many phases he's gone through)

So the challenge: surviving and thriving in a world with inevitable conflict.  Realize that you can change your own future by the choices you make, and try not to get bogged down because of others choices.  Ultimately you have to realize that others are going to make their own choices, according to whatever wishes, plans or schemes they have.  The paths that people take will always be different - as different as the people themselves.