I'm currently reading "The 33 strategies of war" by Robert Greene, and it's blowing my mind. I've always been really attracted to military strategy and tactics in general (e.g., from reading about Napoleon's campaigns, guerrilla warfare, etc., to playing/studying chess and wargames). This book is being great so far. Greene is extremely didactic when explaining the principle, illustrating it with really interesting military/political/etc stories, and then showing how it applies to everyday life.

Anyway, I just want to highlight a pretty basic idea that reading this book has reminded me, and it is that war takes place everyday within ourselves and in the several contexts we act (e.g., workplace, relationships, etc.).

So what does this mean? That we should approach life in general with a martial mindset. That's why learning strategy is so important for self-improvement.

Since I just started reading the book, I don't want this post to be long; I might eventually make comments on several of the strategies Greene comments. I just want to comment on the first strategy: Declare war on your enemies (the polarization strategy).

This is something that you see a lot in military and political history: framing someone as the enemy and declaring war on him/her/it gives cohesion and a sense of purpose that is extremely motivating. So how this applies to everyday life and self-growth? Pretty simple: you have a part inside of you that you must frame as your enemy, and declare war on it. Your procrastination to get up from your ass from the tv and go to the gym and lift; your fear of rejection from approaching girls at the bar or the coffee shop; your laziness to focus and work on your career/business; your fear of failure to risk your time and money in a new business or idea; your procrastination to work on your PhD thesis; your oneitis you have with that unicorn that dumped you when you turned beta... all of them are your enemies. Not only you have to wage war against them, but first of all you must frame them as enemies. Once you realize that inside of you there is a part of you that is actually your enemy, you gain new clarity and purpose.

For instance, some issues in my life that were falling behind were my training/nutrition and my finances. Going through my current life seeking to find new enemies, I realized that I had two of them right around the corner: my procrastination to go to the gym and lift, and my fear of failure in administering my finances. I mentally framed them as enemies, and declared war on them. Got back to the gym and improved all my lifts, and made a general assessment of my finances and made some new investments I had been procrastinating on. All with a renewed sense of purpose.

So those are my two cents.

TL;DR: Life is a constant inner and outer war. Live it as such. If you do not know who/what your inner and outer enemies are, you may be underutilizing or mal-assigning your efforts. Look for your enemies; frame them as such; wage war everyday on them.