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  • I

  • 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 warimbuing them with the significance I believe they

  • deserve.

  • ***

  • (1) War is always possible.

  • In 2014, a recession hit the city.

  • 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

  • for the class before us to finish.

  • 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?”

  • Yeah, I think so.”

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

  • me up with a job?”

  • “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 roommost 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.

  • Dear students,

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

  • we will not be hiring anyone.

  • After all the work I had put in, that's all I gottwo sentences. My heart sank.

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

  • not prepared.

  • (2) Watch for the warning signs of war.

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

  • red flags I had missed.

  • 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

  • I thought it didn't affect me.

  • 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

  • my best to be one of them, I thought.

  • 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

  • me one day.

  • 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

  • the recession altogether.

  • 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

  • what to do next.

  • (4) Pick your battles.

  • 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 wroteworkon one-half andschoolon the other. On each side, I wrote down the

  • most important battles in the war.

  • 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,

  • and attending lectures.

  • 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.

  • (5) Spend energy wisely.

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

  • So I drew eight stars at the top of the pageeach 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

  • the work activities.

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

  • hour on networking.

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

  • spent one hour studying for tests.

  • 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,

  • because I had no idea how long the war would last.

  • Eventually, I landed several interviews.

  • (6) Adjust the battle plan to end the war as fast as possible.

  • As interviews came up, I took out my plan and redirected how I spent my energy. I took

  • an hour away from assignments and an hour away from networking, and I used that time

  • to prepare for interviews.

  • I kept the goal in mind: obtaining a job. If I won that battle, I would've ended the

  • war as fast as possible. So I spent my energy as wisely as I could to obtain thateven

  • if that meant failing some assignments.

  • Eventually, I received another job offer and signed a contract.

  • (7) Be prepared for loss.

  • As soon as I signed the contract, I stopped searching for opportunities and redirected

  • my energy towards school. I focused on completing assignments, studying for tests, and finishing

  • my final design project—a mobile testing station for fire pumps.

  • Summer rolled around, and I graduated with a job in my hand. I even had a few months

  • to relax before work started. I planned to pay off my loans as quickly as possible and

  • move forward with my life.

  • In my mind, the war had ended.

  • But in the summer of 2016, a few months before I was about to start my new role, I received

  • a phone call from the woman who had hired me. “Hey Justin, sorry to say this, but

  • due to the worsening economic situation, we'll have to cancel your contract.”

  • I wondered if that was even possible. She caught me so off-guard, I kind of just awkwardly

  • accepted it. I said something like, “oh, that's unfortunate,” before we ended the

  • call.

  • She sent me an e-mail with an official letter, stating that they would be rescinding the

  • contract.

  • I tried negotiating with them, saying that I would be willing to start eight months later

  • as the economy picked up, but they stood firm in their decision.

  • For ten months, I believed I had a job. I thought I had won the battle and ended the

  • war, so my complacency made me an easy target. Even with a good battle plan, Chaos, the ultimate

  • tactician, snuck behind me and attacked my blind spot.

  • I mistakenly presumed the war ended, and so I had not prepared for this loss.

  • (8) You're stronger than you think.

  • I stared at the e-mail. The major hiring months, September and January, had already passed.

  • The entire process left me jaded, and I decided, immaturely, that I would never place my future

  • in someone else's hands ever again.

  • Later in life, I learned that my future would always be in someone else's hands, at least

  • partly, but at the time, I needed to believe it wasn't to remain strong.

  • After losing the job, I worked harder on a blog I had started. I taught myself to write,

  • animate, and edit videos, and eventually, I turned that blog into a full-time job.

  • Before I lost the job, I never thought I would be able to work for myself. But when I felt

  • I had no options left, I discovered a side of myself that could be self-sufficient and

  • thrive, a side capable of handling way more than I ever thought possible.

  • (9) Appreciate, enjoy, and nurture peace.

  • The entire ordeal showed me the fragility and beauty of peace.

  • Things that appeared stable, such as degrees, corporate jobs, and the economy, proved to

  • be more shaky than I had originally believed.

  • I came to believe that war was the natural state of life. Things naturally regressed

  • towards chaos, and peace only came because someone worked incredibly hard to bring it

  • and maintain it.

  • While my job search became a battleground, things that I had taken for granted, such

  • as a roof over my head, food on the table, my health, friends and family, laughter and

  • connection, became pockets of peace, within which I renewed my energy and found meaning.

  • War made me appreciate peace, and enjoying peace allowed me to keep up the war.

  • But like a garden, peace had to be nurtured and maintained, otherwise it decayed. I worked

  • hard to prevent the chaos in one area of my life from leaking into another. After I completed

  • my job search for the day, I spent time with my girlfriend, cleaned the house, cooked myself

  • a meal, exercised, and watched movies. In other words, I appreciated, enjoyed, and nurtured

  • the peace I still had in other areas of my lifeinstead of letting the recession entirely

  • consume me.

  • ***

  • As I reflect on these nine principles,

  • (1) War is always possible. (2) Watch for the warning signs of war.

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

  • (4) Pick your battles. (5) Spend energy wisely.

  • (6) Adjust the battle plan to end the war as fast as possible.

  • (7) Be prepared for loss. (8) You're stronger than you think.

  • (9) Appreciate, enjoy, and nurture peace.

  • I find they hold up for many difficult times in my life.

  • Even now, as I pursue a career in writing, I find myself falling back on these principles.

  • Every day, I get up and create a battle plan—a list of projects I need to work on.

  • Then I determine how to spread my energy across them.

  • Every morning, I reassess whether my plans are moving me towards my goals, and every

  • evening, I stop working at a set time, so I can appreciate, enjoy, and nurture the peace

  • in my life.

  • I keep in mind that the statistical likelihood of having a long, successful, and full-time

  • career as an artist is rare. Failure is likely, but with these principles, I have a good foundation

  • with which I can do battle.

I

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兵法から学んだ9つの原則 (9 Principles I Learned from The Art of War)

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    Summer に公開 2021 年 01 月 14 日
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