“Was Krishna cunning? No. . . . He tried his best to prevent the war. . . But, once in the thing, you should not recede – that is the man of duty. Do not run away, it is cowardice. . . You should not budge an inch – of course not for a wrong thing; this war was a righteous war.” — Swami Vivekananda
Sometimes, you find yourself in one place when you would rather be elsewhere. You want to relax on a Sunday, but your partner takes you shopping. You were looking forward to a vacation but had to cancel at the last minute because of a work emergency. You want to follow one strategy, but the team chooses the exact opposite.
In such cases, you have two choices. The first is to resist. The second, as Andy Grove, the late CEO of Intel, put it, is to disagree and commit.
In the former, your body is in one place while your mind is in another. You act half-heartedly and make your frustration amply clear. In the latter, your mind is in the same place as your body. You fully commit to the task in thought and action. Where will you be happier and more productive?
Yes, what you wanted didn’t happen. But will getting upset make anything better? It’s better to learn this lesson from Krishna and make the experience pleasant for yourself and for others by willingly participating in it. For what it’s worth, you might even end up having fun.