Choose Your Battles Wisely

And if nothing good can come out of low-level amusement and play in the lives of regular people, then how can anything good come out of the high-level amusement and play we saw in places like Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya, and Ukraine over the past few decades? By now, many of you are familiar with my personal story. I was invited and recruited on a number of occasions to engage in such high-level amusement and play through various avenues and pathways. But for one reason or another, I am now sitting here warning all of you about the adverse outcomes, consequences, dangers, and risks of such high-level amusement and play. 

And as I mentioned before, the way forward for all of us is to confront and constrain those who are engaged in such high-level amusement and play, which first and foremost crushes and tramples everyone situated below. We see what has happened to Afghan women and children, for instance, and now we are seeing it happen to Ukrainian women and children. At the highest levels of governance and society, we see that delinquents and warmongers who do not have the character or the temperament to conform to international rules, norms and laws are causing immense suffering to the most vulnerable people in the world. 

And you will be surprised as to the reaction of these big bullies and warmongers when they are confronted. They will either block your communications and email address, hide, or cower when confronted. They do not have the stomach or the spine to deal with you face-to-face. In essence, these big bullies and warmongers are cowardly and fearful, and they use wealth and status as a shield and as protection in order to avoid a reckoning for a pattern of behavior which now has global consequences and implications. But when confronted, you will be surprised to find that these bullies and warmongers who drag all of us into chaos, destruction, and war are actually cowards and imbeciles whose primary instincts are first and foremost flight rather than fight. 

In short, these exemplars of honor and valor and these television majors and generals and colonels and secretaries and diplomats and so on and so forth have less courage and honor than the average citizen. And while hiding, they seek to stonewall and thwart a course correction, primarily for two reasons. For one, they seek to stonewall and thwart a course correction due to a guilty conscience and their personal failure to step up to the occasion and to do what was necessary and to do what the times and the situation called for. Second, they seek to stonewall and thwart a course correction because if they cannot get ahead in life based on merit and qualifications, then they will use petty tactics in order to stop others from getting ahead based on merit and qualifications. 

In sum, big problems emerge out of petty people, petty situations and petty things. Both regular people and wealthy people as well as those in power can attest to the reality that after all that we have experienced and went through as a nation and as an international society, big problems emerge out of petty people, petty situations, and petty things. And the fundamental choice or decision for us, which I must note was a choice and a decision I was confronted with on a number of occasions throughout my youth and my early adulthood, is to either fight the pettiness, engage in the pettiness, or overcome the pettiness through self-development and self-improvement. But if the pettiness is to be fought, it must be done with the right mindset and with the right strategies. And most importantly, when choosing to fight pettiness, we must know when to fight and when not to fight. As ancient wisdom dictates, choose your battles wisely.