Almost ALL of the people I’m close to these days have “done me wrong” more than once. Our enemies, CAN become some of our strongest allies.

One of my students are concerned about my befriending someone who “did me wrong” awhile ago. I’m going to show her this post.

Keep up the awesome work,
Sheree

I too LOVE discussing issues. I agree making enemies uses up too much energy. I had to remind myself of that yesterday. I had a potentially negative road upon which I was considering embarking upon and the more I thought about it, I simply let it go and I think it was a wise decision.

If you love these discussions, please stay tuned. I look forward to getting to know everybody on Twitter. Please also mention it to your friends. The more people we can add to the discussion the better.

You use up too much energy in making someone your enemy. It probably is better to be cordial towards them rather than using, as you mentioned, a constant defensive posture to ward of their blows.

I like discussing issue like these and going deeper into things that hopefully help us evolve as humans. Blog can be a useful tool for such dialogue.

What I mean by giving your enemies something to live for is this . . . First, bear in mind that the post was suggested by a fellow Twitterer who wanted to know about “crushing his enemies”. Sun Tzu (one of my all time favorites), suggest that you should never, ever, ever totally destroy and enemy, unless it is absolutely necessary. Because then, that enemy will do nothing but seek revenge against you from here until kingdom come.

Secondly, a desperate enemy will keep fighting, fighting and fighting because they have nothing to lose. If they stop fighting, they will die. No one wants to die, so they will have to keep fighting fighting and you will have to keep defending.

Instead, if you give your enemy something to live for, they might feel that they have a reason to STOP fighting and if they stop fighting, you can stop defending. In other words, you might be able to defeat the enemy, without having to have crushed them into the ground.

Does that make sense?

I found you on Twitter. Good post. I generally agree with you here but I don’t understand what you mean by giving your enemies something to live for? I know you can’t have everyone like you, and these people that don’t like you will probably either a. avoid you, or b. be openly antagonistic towards you. Everyone is different in regards to how they react.

Thanks.

Ellen