Name: 我從《孫子兵法》中學到的9條原則 (9 Principles I Learned from The Art of War)
Uploaded: 2021-01-14T10:54:48.000Z
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find that my life fluctuates between two internal states: war and peace.

War feels like being fired, falling sick, or getting a divorce. It feels like stress,

wanting, desire, dissatisfaction, danger, or being off-balance.

Peace feels like finding a new job, becoming healthy again, or entering a new and loving

relationship. It feels like satisfaction, contentment, satiation, or love.

War feels like being asked a question, and peace feels like finding an answer.

And although I want everlasting peace, I find war to be the dominant state of my internal

life. War acts as a necessary precursor to peace. To better navigate the battle within,

I plan to take quotes from Sun Tzu's The Art of War, combine them with my own life

experience, and create an original set of principles.

I attempt not to reduce actual war to the level of ordinary occurrences, but to elevate

ordinary occurrences to the level of war—imbuing them with the significance I believe they

In September of 2015, I walked through the university campus without a care in the world.

The sun hung high in the sky, the cork trees had bloomed into fullness, and the smell of

my coffee floated through the air. I had been one of the lucky ones who landed and completed

an internship over the summer, and I looked forward to starting the final year of my degree.

I entered the mechanical engineering building and walked towards my classroom. A group of

students, roughly ten to fifteen, gathered outside the door. I stood with them, waiting

“How was your summer?” asked a friend. “I heard you worked with a big oil company.”

“Yeah, I did,” I said. “It was good. How was your summer? Did you work anywhere?”

“Nah, just relaxed. Do you think you'll be going back?”

“Lucky,” he said, as the previous class exited the room. “Do you think you can hook

“I wish,” I said. “They're only hiring back from their pool of interns.”

He frowned. “Dang, it's hard right now.”

I nodded. We entered the classroom and took our seats.

Chatter filled the room—most of it about the summer and work.

Because of the recession, many students had not been able to land an internship for the

summer of 2015, and understandably, they stressed over getting a job for graduation.

Many of us took out loans to get our degrees, and we spent forty hours a week, for the last

three years, trying to graduate. Society had told us engineering was a reliable and practical

path to a good career, and in most cases, they would have been right. But we were in

the right space, at the right time, where the certain became uncertain.

But I didn't stress over the recession. I had worked several internships with a good

company, and I even served as their campus ambassador. So I patiently waited to receive

an e-mail with the contract for a full-time position.

About a month into the semester, just before noon, I sat at the kitchen table with a coffee

in my hand. My computer beeped, notifying me that I had received an e-mail. It was from

the company. My heart raced, as I took a sip of coffee and opened the e-mail.

You have done wonderful work in the last few years. But due to the state of the economy,

After all the work I had put in, that's all I got—two sentences. My heart sank.

I had foolishly assumed I was immune to war, and now it stood in front of me, and I had

After I had read the e-mail, I sat at the kitchen table and thought back to all the

In 2014, on TV's all around the city, news anchors spoke about a possible recession.

I never paid attention to them. I had lined up an internship for the summer of 2015, so

In 2015, I worked at a big corporate office. Around coffee machines and in meetings, senior

employees talked about how difficult it would be for a student to get a full time job. But

I kept my head down and worked harder. If they only hire a few students, I'll try

And for my whole life, I had lived in a city that boomed and busted with the oil prices.

If I planned on working in the energy industry, I should have known that a bust would affect

I had missed the warning signs, so the war caught me off guard.

(3) Avoid war at all costs, but when that's not possible, engage in war on your terms.

Had I assumed war was possible and paid attention to the signs, I could have avoided it entirely,

or at least, I could have engaged it on my own terms.

I could have studied psychology or philosophy, worked toward a PhD, and possibly avoided

I could have worked internships in the HVAC or automotive industry, so when the recession

came, I had a better chance of landing a job in a less affected industry.

I could have applied to study or work in a city with more diverse opportunities.

But it was too late. The war had already arrived, so I prepared for battle and thought about

The possibility of a thousand different battles flooded my mind, but I couldn't afford to

fight them all. I pulled out a piece of paper from my bag and drew a line down the middle.

I wrote “work” on one-half and “school” on the other. On each side, I wrote down the

I started with work: update my resume, apply for jobs, and network.

Then I listed the tasks I needed to finish for school: assignments, studying for tests,

The list functioned like a map, giving me a birds-eye view of the battlefield. Without

it, I could have neglected an important battle or misspent my energy.

I knew I could work about eight hours every day without getting burnt out.

So I drew eight stars at the top of the page—each one representing an hour of time.

I decided to spend the majority of my time job hunting, because if I had won that battle,

the war would have ended right away. I scratched out five stars and distributed them among

Every day, I spent two hours working on my resume, two hours applying for jobs, and one

I used the remaining three hours for school. I spent two hours doing assignments, and I

In the end, I allotted no time towards lectures. I realized early on that lectures were not

for me, because they cost more energy than they were worth.

Because I had created a sustainable plan, I kept up with the marathon of war. Each day

I got up, executed on the plan, and then rested. I never overextended or exhausted myself,

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我從《孫子兵法》中學到的9條原則 (9 Principles I Learned from The Art of War)

assume

eventually

engage

chaos