Part 2: Fighting

When danger threatens, the impulse to fight or flee floods the body with ready energy. But survival in the urban jungle requires different skills than the ones our ancestors used in dealing with wild animals. Now the best way to survive is often not to fight or flee, but to flow. This requires thinking skills and self-discipline to overcome the imp

The new warrior is now called to meet a highly ambiguous challenge, often of minimal physicality. Saving habitat and community is a complex, wicked proposition, and the challenge of modern activism is often brutally cognitive. The enemy, if there is one, is not always obvious, and success not always clear. Can the warrior stand up to this kind of c

We all fight wars—in our work, within our families and abroad in the wider world. Each of us struggles every day to define and defend our sense of purpose and integrity, to justify our existence on the planet and to understand, if only within our own hearts, who we are and what we believe in.

There comes a time in every company’s life where it must fight for its life. If you find yourself running when you should be fighting, you need to ask yourself, “If our company isn’t good enough to win, then do we need to exist at all?”

These kinds of situations are notoriously difficult to manage because we don’t want to give up who we are unless there is something better to replace it. If you find yourself being swallowed up by a conflict, if you begin to see your very identity as tied to the fight, try to take a step back and remember why you are fighting. You are fighting for

In those days, I worked long and hard to develop my skill. But it remained locked away. For I was prey to the greed of winning. And this greed of winning led me into the bowels of fear. And a fearful man cannot fight. He can only flail.

try to take a step back and remember why you are fighting. You are fighting for what is right and fair, not because you need the conflict to survive.

Most women fight wars on two fronts, one for whatever the putative topic is and one simply for the right to speak, to have ideas, to be acknowledged to be in possession of facts and truths, to have value, to be a human being.