Worth fighting

How do you decide what is worth fighting for?

Often, I have disagreements with people and I have to evaluate whether that argument is worth my energy and resources. Most fights aren’t. However, I have often indulged myself in many unnecessary and irrelevant squabbles. Several are in support of others with shared ideologies. Some of them because they felt like personal attacks. Recently though, I started thinking whether I was rationally deciding which fights to fight and which to let go.

Not making a decision is easy, and so we tend to follow behind the principles set by others. Whether it is coding conventions or political opinions, we often do not question what is good for us and what we truly believe in. We follow: not only a leader, but an idea. The leaders who imbibe those ideas, become intertwined in our minds. This happens with both ideologies we agree with and with the ones we disagree with.

It is hard as an adult to be able to disassociate people from their one ideology. To remember that you are human, and you are biased is a very difficult task indeed. So, when you blindly follow or disagree with a person or idea, it is important to always reconsider your motivations. Of course, this indecision would be crippling if practiced every single day. This is why it is important to have broad understanding of the world and have empathy towards the ideas that you disagree with.

“Funny, isn’t it, how so many of our stories start the same way, but have opposing endings? In half, the child ignores her parents, wanders out into the woods, and gets eaten. In the other half she discovers great wonders. There aren’t many stories about the kids who say, ‘Yes, I shall not go into the forest. I’m glad my parents explained that is where the monsters live.” - Oathbringer, Brandon Sanderson

Now, why am I suddenly inflicted about what is worth fighting for. This is about a wall. A wall in my office. An office that I haven’t been to in 3+ months. A wall that I feel was a part of me for so long. It was something I saw every single day, late at night or early in the morning and even on weekends. This wall is not important, of course. As it has painstakingly pointed out to me: it was never meant to be permanent (it is a blackboard after all).

Even though, it is important in the grand scheme of things and I wouldn’t have shed a tear if it disappeared; when it was time to tear it down I made a humble request. A request for preservation. This led me down a fight that I hadn’t signed up for. It made me angry and my hormones up. The main reason was the attitude of people were trying to bring it down. Their ideology seemed misguided so, it became a fight I wanted to fight. It slowly got blown out of proportion and democracy won: the wall lived.

Was this the right fight?

All last night I couldn’t sleep. I kept twisting and turning and wondering if this wall which was over 10, 538kms away is wiped clean yet. Did I act out of some malign spirit or honesty? Did I fight a good fight? These questions bothered me restless. It felt like I had crossed a line or two. It became personal; if it was torn down it was because people didn’t care about my opinion.

“But merely being tradition does not make something worthy. We can't just assume that because something is old it is right.”

- Oathbringer, Brandon Sanderson

At that point, I knew the fight was lost. I won but in process of fighting, I lost. I woke up unrested and completely out of sorts with little ability to focus. Once you make a good fight personal, when it becomes about your emotions and not ideology: it is lost. One should retreat when a fight becomes personal. When a fight becomes not about what you believe in, but rather an incessant need to prove your righteousness: it is no longer a good fight. If you are fighting demons and enemies you invented, it is not possible to win.

“Fighting makes you strong, but also callous. I worry I have learned too much of the latter and not enough of the former.”