Battles & War

It came to me through Kings Of Convenience's song "Winning a Battle, Losing The War", you can see life in the viewpoint of battles and war. Not the content of the song that inspire me though, just plainly the title.

Sun Tzu, said to be one of the greatest strategist wrote the book Art of War. And yeah, you don't need to read the whole thousand-pages thick book, I'll just spill the essence here. One of the greatest quote I learn from him is:

If you only know yourself, but not your opponent, you may win or may lose.
If you know neither yourself nor your enemy, you will always endanger yourself.

Or in a more condensed version:

If you know both yourself and your enemy, you can come out of hundreds of battles without danger.

And I begin to think. Contemplate. Isn't it what happen in our life? Day in day out we face battles.

Battles in all kind of size. Battle of waking up early in the morning. Battle of patience on a fookin traffic (yeas i use the f-word, i'm not trying to be fookin holy or something. see i just use it again. haha). Battle of meeting deadlines, whatever deadlines it is. Project deadlines? Thesis deadlines? Credit card deadlines? Battle of letting go? Et cetera.

And the answer is lying there all along: Know yourself, know your enemy!

Knowing yourself, your strength, your talents, also your weaknesses is vital to surviving these battles. In your job, learn the demands of your customers. Expand your knowledge. Know your enemies is as vital as knowing yourself. Competition? It will always be there. So learn where you stand over others. Have you been a procrastinator? Know why you did that in the first place, is it because you're stuck taking passion-less major in university surrounded by passion-less people? The thing is take action! It's not always that hard to fight over battle, some time is just a matter of willing or not. And I believe we are born to be the head, we are here to overcome battles! So rise up! I've faced it myself, and its proven, once you take action, one good thing will lead to another.

Now I'm speaking more specifically to battles over whatever habits that you've been fighting for years. Get to know yourself, and your enemy. The devil itself and how it works. How it condemns. How it misled. How it create contradiction in your mind. And once you master yourself and your enemy, be reminded that each of us has one God that's greater that all our battles combined. Instead of falling to devil's deception over and over again, take charge when the battle arrive!

Lastly, but not least, be aware that winning one battle surely take you one step closer to winning the war, however losing one battle doesn't necessarily means losing your chance to win the war.

KEEP FIGHTING! SMILE ON, SHINE ON PEOPLE!

-- originally written June 2008