Picking your battles – Prudence or Cowardice?

Life without conflict is as impossible as a baby with a forever clean diaper….no matter how hard you to try to avoid it, sooner or later there’s going to be $#i!. If I were to share my biggest lesson about managing conflict, I would say “Pick your battles wisely”. Making the choice of “which fight is worth fighting” is first and foremost. Then follow the strategies and tactics for resolving the conflict. Imagine climbing a difficult mountain putting in all your efforts, only to get to its peak and realise that it’s the wrong mountain. There is no beautiful valley of flowers as you had imagined. There’s only a deep, dark abyss.

And that’s what happens often. So many times, so many of us pick the wrong battles. Wrong battles are those which even if won, will not add more meaning, fulfilment or joy to our lives. Right battles are those that even if lost, add greatly to our true self-worth (not foolish ego), and mark a milestone in the long and arduous journey towards justice.

The first category of the battles we need to re-think are the ones we pick up in the “heat of the moment”. These are typically impulsive angry outbursts without having calmly thought through the issue and its consequences. Road rage is a typical example – Someone overtook you from the wrong side, you made him stop, had a nasty altercation that lasted 15 minutes, and reached very late for an important customer meeting, ruining all your chances of bagging the deal.

Overtaking from the wrong side is a mistake – True. You were wronged – that is also True. Therefore, should you make the person aware of his mistake and make him admit he was wrong? Would it be prudence if you let go of this battle, or would it be cowardice – not standing up for yourself? The answer to that question needs some deliberation. In an ideal world, yes, all mistakes are punished, everything is fair and your rights are protected. But, that’s the deal, the world is not ideal. There are trade-offs to be made. Maybe, if you had paused a bit, you could have compared the fulfilment of bagging the upcoming deal with the irritation you feel at being overtaken from the wrong side. Maybe, you would have realised that having an altercation is just not worth your while at this moment, when you have far more important things to focus on. Maybe, you would have let go.

Included in this first category are battles we have over simple likes and dislikes or preferences. For example, two colleagues argue over the font size used in a slide deck. One says 16, the other prefers 20. Within no time, the argument has more to do with the size of their egos, instead of the size of the font. Each thinks that getting his own way would somehow establish his superiority over the colleague. Again, would it be prudence if they let go of this battle, or would it be cowardice? Maybe, if they reflect, they would realise that it is more important to discuss the content of the slide deck, and maybe they should let go of the battle over the font size.

As human beings, we are far more wired to “hold on” than to “let go”. Letting go does not come easily to many of us. It has to be consciously practiced and cultivated. So, think through the conflicts you are going through right now in your life. How much is it costing you to hold onto the conflict – time, energy, negativity? Also, include the opportunity cost of the conflict – if the time, energy and resources that you are expending in this conflict were spent on another pursuit, would the joy and meaning in your life be greater? Are you holding onto this conflict only because of anger? In hindsight, is the issue quite trivial, or is there a very important cause, priority or life principle that you care deeply about and are standing up for it? Think through these questions carefully and decide what you want to do.

One thing is clear for sure, that if we pause a bit before our angry outbursts or ego tussles, think through the importance or triviality of the issue and the consequences, we will definitely reduce a large amount of unnecessary conflict in our lives.

The second category of battles that need a lot of thought and reflection are about issues that matter  to us. Our initial anger has subsided, some time has passed since the issue occurred, but we still feel violated, then it probably means that it is an important issue. Should we pick up this battle or not?

Lets understand this better with an example. Sridhar is a very hardworking employee who came up with some great ideas for improving the department and shared them with his manager. To his dismay, in the next staff meeting, his manager stole those ideas and presented them as his own, winning accolades from the senior leaders. There have been other incidents in the past where Sridhar has been let down by his manager. Sridhar knows that his manager does not like his authority to be questioned, and if he takes up this issue, the manager would take great offence and become vindictive……going to the point where he may create conditions for Sridhar to leave the job. Sridhar is the sole earning member in his family, he has two children, his parents are dependent upon him, and he needs to repay a big house loan. There is a recession in the economy and the job market is very tight right now.

Should he pick up this battle or not? Would it be prudence if he let go of this battle, or would it be cowardice – not standing up for himself?

The chances of winning this battle are poor, and there is a severe downside of starting this conflict. He has not been given his due at work, but on the other side is his family whom he loves dearly and wants to provide for them as best as possible. Unfortunately, life doesn’t give us easy answers….things are not black and white. Only Sridhar can decide the right thing for him to do. He may decide to swallow the affront, and continue with the job, or he may decide to wait for a while till the job market is better and find another job. Or, he may decide to bring it up with his manager, and go through the conflict with all the possible consequences.

Now take this discussion a few notches higher. Let’s talk about life and death issues, about injustices that repulse our soul. An Indian will be jailed if he tries to produce salt locally (in 1930). A Black in USA will be jailed (in 1955) if she refuses to give up her bus seat for a White person. A girl in a village gets raped, and is threatened to keep quiet because if she reports it to the police, her entire family will be killed. A junior government officer is threatened with kidnap and murder because he wants to report the corrupt senior officials. The Taliban will shoot girls if they try to attend school in Afghanistan. The chances of winning (at the time of many of these incidents) were poor. The consequences of these battles were severe. Many of these battles costed lives.

Should these people have let go of these battles? Would it have been cowardice or prudence to let go? Picking up these battles and standing up for themselves, as they did – was it courage or foolhardiness?

The battles we face in life are actually arranged on a continuum – from trivial at one end to crucial at the other. In the middle are ones that are similar to Sridhar, where the issue is important (though not exactly life and death), and standing up for one issue may mean compromising on another life priority or principle. Self awareness is very important in these dilemmas. We need to know where exactly our meaning, fulfilment and joy lies and only then make our choices, deciding what is “right” for us.

However, the point I am trying to make is that in our homes and in our workplaces, we are probably more guilty of trivial battles than crucial ones, of wrong battles than right ones. More often than not, we are unable to let go of trivial issues, and more often than not, we are unable to muster up the courage to stand up for crucial issues.

It maybe useful for us to think through which battles in our life are trivial, and by letting go of them, can we release energy for the important priorities of life, the BIG ROCKs, things that really matter – those that will enhance the meaning, fulfilment and joy in our lives by leaps and bounds.

Let me leave you to ponder on this with on one of my favourite prayers – The Serenity Prayer*. I have adapted it slightly to suit the context.

“God, grant me the tolerance to let go of battles that needn’t be fought, the courage to fight the battles that need to be, and the wisdom to know the difference”

*Serenity Prayer – God grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change; courage to change the things I can; 
and wisdom to know the difference.