Choosing your Battles

Hey Bean, it's your Dad,

I think one of the hardest lessons I learned in life was the concept of choosing the right battles to fight. Conflict is a part of life. Whether it's verbal conflict, social competition, or even physical conflict, you can't escape that conflict will happen. I'm pretty sure you already know this, but you are never going to win every single conflict. The good news is you will win some and if you do it right you will win more than you lose. This is why learning to choose your battles is such an important thing.

While it's an easy thing to say "choose your battles." it's a bit harder to figure out which battles you should choose and why you should choose them. While I don't have all the answers for these questions, I do have some, and I figured I would pass some of those off to you. I want you to succeed and that means equipping you with tools to do so. Don't take what I say as the final authority on this or anything else I talk about. Make sure you think about the things I say here, but don't become slavishly devoted to them. In fact, making sure you remain flexible is a key in choosing your own battles.

In order to even be able to choose a battle, you have to be able to adjust to the situation. If you are not flexible, then you have a lot more of a chance having your battles chosen for you. You want to avoid having other people choose your battles because more often then not, they are wanting you to fight a battle for them, not for yourself. This is a good reason to remain flexible because if you are flexible it means you can choose not to get in a battle you don't want. In fact, if you want to see a really good example of the advantage of choosing your battles, look into how Robert E. Lee commanded the rebel forces during the U.S. Civil War. During that whole war, he never allowed the enemy to choose the battle, except for one and that turned out to be the most crucial battle of the war.

While Lee is a great example of choosing your battles, and the folly of allowing your battles to be chosen for you, another thing to think about is deciding if a battle is worth winning. There is a term called a pyrrhic victory. This term is used to describe a situation in which you may have won a battle but you still lost the war. Sometimes it can be easy to be drawn into a battle, and most people, once engaged in conflict, will do everything they can to win. However, it is possible to expend yourself so much in one battle that you can't win any of the others. It can be hard to know when you should keep fighting and when you should let the other person win. It's hard to let someone else win a battle, but there will be times when it is the best decision you can make.

For me as a person, I have found that letting Mommy win the battles she really cares about is a much better result than fighting her tooth and nail over everything we disagree on. However, at the same time, she has learned to do the same with me. This doesn't mean we never fight, but it does mean we fight less and that means we have more time to love each other, and that is a good thing. If either I or Mommy insisted on winning every single battle against the other, chances are the relationship would not be as healthy as it is.

Not only do you need to choose which battles to fight, but you also need to learn when a battle can be avoided and a connection made instead. Anyone who is worth anything as a leader knows that diplomacy should always be the first option. Whether you are trying to win an argument or win a war, the best path is the one that causes the least amount of damage. Sometimes this means working with people we don't like or compromising on things we would rather not compromise on, but if it builds an alliance instead of causing a battle, it's generally a good thing.

This doesn't mean sell yourself out just to make alliances. It also doesn't mean you need to take an unfavorable compromise in order to avoid battle. Sometimes, no matter how hard you try to be reasonable other people will demand more thna you are willing to give. When this happens, it's time to go to war. While it's generally better to avoid conflict, there are times when conflict becomes necessary. If you were smart about making sure the conflict happened in a way and at a time of your choosing then you have a better chance of winning.

I know this is a bit of how to post and probably doesn't go into enough detail, but that's the way of life at times. Sometimes you have to make decisions based off fuzy information. I hope this gets you thinking though, I hope all my posts get you thinking. It's why I am writing them after all.