In the one life that we are given we go through many battles, some of them we need to win to reach our goals, however many of them are pointless quarrels that bring us nothing but stress and waste of time, regardless whether we win or loose. Knowing the difference between the two is vitally important, if you waste too much of your life fighting for the wrong purpose you will not have enough time for doing what really matters. At the very end of your life you will have much more clarity on the all time you wasted, the problem is, that it will be too late to do anything about. Hence, think twice about involving yourself into petty issues, either your own and especially that of others before its too late.
Where Does The Quote Originate From?
That being said the context of the quote in which Sun Tzu meant it was entirely different. Sun Tzu being a Chinese General had only one purpose, to successfully crash his opponents with a little casualties as possible, although that was not because he was sympathetic or somehow cared for human lives (in fact quite the opposite), but because he was skillfully efficient in warfare and understood the importance of being efficient and not wasting resources.
Accordingly, he had the two leaders beheaded, and straightway installed the pair next in order as leaders in their place. When this had been done, the drum was sounded for the drill once more; and the girls went through all the evolutions, turning to the right or to the left, marching ahead or wheeling back, kneeling or standing, with perfect accuracy and precision, not venturing to utter a sound.
This quote is more of a summary then an exact quotation from Sun Tzu`s manual Art Of War , we can find a passage which has the same meaning, only written in different words.
2. Hence to fight and conquer in all your battles is not supreme excellence; supreme excellence consists in breaking the enemy’s resistance without fighting.
Sun Tzu on The Art of War, Chapter III
Who was Sun Tzu?
Sun Tzu was a military general and a strategist in China, born in 544 BCE. Not much is known about Sun Tzu the fact that he ever even existed also remains unclear just as much as if Sun Tzu was his real name. His book, however, The Art of War remains to this day a literary masterpiece on strategy and philosophy of war. Many CEOs, entrepreneurs and public figures adopt the advice found in this short book to their advantage.
What is the Meaning of the Quote?
In the context of the book the quote is fairly self explanatory, that is, the best way to win, is to do so without sacrificing any part of your military or resources. However a parallel meaning can be drawn from this very same quote. That is, instead of creating unnecessary conflicts to achieve what we desire, we must first try to think of getting to our goal with minimal time and effort spent. This is where your creativity and imagination should kick in, instead of trying to do the obvious, try to look for a way around your impediments or conflicts. Remember most things do not need to be solved with brute force.
Winning personal wars without battles
Too many people are wasting their time fighting pointless battles or creating arguments when they really should be taking action. This becomes a pattern in many different aspects of our life, if you see yourself reliving the same types of arguments over and over again, it might be time to pause, reflect and change your approach. Here are some examples of life aspects that can create unnecessary conflicts that can waste a lot of your time if you are not careful:
- Toxic Workplace
- Broken Relationships
- Arguments with Strangers
Too many people stick around in a toxic workplace in hopes that sometime it will change, for example lets say you have a manager who keeps dangling promotion or a raise in front of you, but, “the company has no money right now, we will review your performance next year”. Next year comes and of course, its either a menial raise or some other excuse. You might get frustrated, maybe you will try to negotiate, and after some month going back and forth you get an extra 2% raise. What you have just done is wasted a chunk of a year waiting for someone to give you something that you already deserved.
But you did not have to go through all of that, you could have just as easily updated your resume, found another job with a better offer and jumped ship. Sure, perhaps interviewing is not one of the most pleasant experiences in life, however you have wasted much less of your time then trying to convince one person to give you a raise instead of convincing many different people doing so.
While I appreciate that life is not that straightforward, and we perhaps have family or children to look after instead of spending time preparing or doing interviews, but at the end of the day, the only choice we are left with is to leave for better opportunity or beg for raises to match inflation, personally I am not a fan of begging.
Too many people waste a bug chunk of their life trying to fix their broken relationships, sometimes it may even be worth it, especially if more than two people are involved. However most of the time we crave to go back to the way things were at the beginning, we think we can just fix our other half and it will be honeymoon period all over again.
Unfortunately, most time this is not the case and because you have been in a relationship for so long you became complacent and somewhat dependent on your other half. However, sometimes its the things we don`t want to do which we need to do the most. Therefore, if you are in broken relationship, and you have tried to mend it with no results, perhaps it`s time to part ways.
Arguments usually exist for one plausible reason, to get the other person to see your point of view and understand the thought process of your challenger. Sadly not everyone sees it that way, some people just want to argue for the sake of arguing. It may be that they get an ego boost from being petty or they just always wanted attention and that’s the only way they ever managed to get any. Regardless of the reasons you should absolutely avoid engaging with such individuals. In fact, remember if at the end of your argument you say to yourself ..”I sure put him/her in their place” you already lost.
life is short make sure you spend as much time as possible on the internet arguing with strangers The Internet (Sarcasm)