Imagine if you were building a structure as great as the Eiffel Tower. Everyone agrees that they are in it for the long haul to build this wonderful thing. Day after day, they build and things look very promising. Suddenly one day, an important day at that, a few of the builders decide to slow down or stop all together. Everyone’s looking at them like “hey guys, why aren’t you working?”. They say nothing. “Hey guys, this building is very important; it’s going to feed our families and put us in the history books”, they say nothing. It becomes evident that these guys don’t share the same enthusiasm for completion of this structure. Upon further investigation it turns out that 3 weeks before this pseudo-strike, these guys had ordered Doritos during lunch break. The person in charge of food bought them Pringles because that’s all that was available. That’s the cause of the anger and lack of participation. Not only is this selfish act going to set the group back and slow down momentum of the project but it’s also not going to get them Doritos next time around, or even Pringles for that matter. The goal on day one was to build a great structure, not to eat chips.

I say this to say this. I’ve observed an overwhelming amount of people willing to throw away quality building over something so miniscule and irrelevant in the grand scheme of things. They don’t realize they’re throwing it away though; they usually think they’re proving some sort of point. Instead they end up causing the other person/people to adjust and figure out how to do it without them.

I think battles should be chosen wisely and fought even more wisely. Fighting the wrong battle has cost people money, jobs, spouses, and even their lives. I can speak on this because I’ve been through it firsthand. During my short stint at George Mason University I was able to work for a great man, Coach Jim Larranaga. He was the coach of the basketball team and a father figure/teacher to all of us. During practices, road trips, games, and anything pertaining to that seasons goal, the man would be a monster. So intense, so “mean”, “rude”, “disrespectful”, etc. I put those words in quotations because he was none of that. He was a man with a goal and he didn’t care about anyone’s feelings or emotions when it was time to work. He said what had to be said. As a result, that team shocked the nation and made the NCAA Final Four and will forever be in the history books as one of the smallest programs to make it that far. Coach L was also one of the most fun people to be around and he’ll buy you any bag of chips you wanted once the mission was complete.

I recently had two relationships end that had potential for greatness. One because I was thinking about my bag of chips and the other because someone else was focused on a bag of chips. In neither instance was it worth it. Be careful out there my friends.