no sweat‏

“The more you sweat in peace, the less you bleed in war.” ~ Sun Tzu

So many applications.

For example:

Proverbs 24:27

Prepare your work outside;
get everything ready for yourself in the field,
and after that build your house.

In other words, “Get your crap together before inviting a woman into your life!” (VVCSV)

Proverbs 14:4

Where there are no oxen, the manger is clean,
but abundant crops come by the strength of the ox.

In other words, “Life is about shoveling crap. If you want comfort, kill your ox. If you want crops, grab a shovel.” (VVCSV)

 

Most of our lives are guided by urgency rather than importance.

We are constantly doing the thing that is most pressing rather than the thing that is most important.

Sun Tzu and Proverbs and even Stephen Covey are asking you to consider living life in Quadrant 2: Focus.

We live in Quadrant 1 because we don’t spend any time in Quadrant 2.

Once we have exhausted ourselves by putting out fires all day, we retire to quadrant 4 and do nothing (see; Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, YouTube, etc…)

Do we all need a release?
Probably.

Do we all have emergencies for which we did not plan and could not have anticipated? Certainly.

But we MUST recognize that the more we sweat in peace the less we will bleed in war.

It is not fun to do important things.
The adrenaline rush of fire-fighting in quadrant 1 is largely lost.

Choosing water over pop in order to avoid the crisis of obesity is not as thrilling as taking designer pills or liposuction. The results are not as quick and not as noticeable.

Listening to your wife is not as glamorous as going to counseling after she has found another man who will listen. I get that.

But don’t be a douche!

Sweat a little.

You will bleed less.

And sweat is easier to replace.