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Know Thy Enemy


We all have enemies.  More than you think.

From Sun Tzu, in his notable Art of War, we learn “If you know the enemy and know yourself, you need not fear the result of a hundred battles. If you know yourself but not the enemy, for every victory gained you will also suffer a defeat. If you know neither the enemy nor yourself, you will succumb in every battle.”  This was not really original to Sun Tzu but a well understood aphorism at the time.

Not all of us are going to war in the sense of physical battles.  However, all of us have enemies of one form or another.  For almost everything you do, there is an enemy that wishes to defeat success.  You have your personal enemies, private enemies, and unknown enemies.  Below we list a group common to us all.  Effectively, while they appear to be opposites, it is stronger to say that one defeats the other, or undoes it, or overturns it, or destabilizes it. 

Enemies. The enemy of XXX is YYY. For example the enemy of belief is doubt.
•         Car engine – heat
•         Cooking -  carelessness
•         Activity – indolence
•         Hygiene – filth
•         Truth – lies
•         Belief - doubt
•         Governance – uncertainty
•         Weather – random events
•         Communication – silence
•         Business - indecision
•         Love – hate (R)
•         Peace – war (R)
•         Commitment – vacillation
•         Openness – gossip
•         Privacy – surveillance

(R) = reversible

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