In the Warring States period of ancient China, there were 2 philosophers. Their names were Zhuangzi and Huizi. One day, they were out for a walk, and they reached a bridge. Beneath the bridge was a pond, and beneath the pond there were many fish swimming. Zhuangzi exclaimed, \u201cLook how happy the fish are, swimming around. This must be what it is like to be free.\u201d Huizi retorted, \u201cYou\u2019re not a fish, how should you know that they are happy?\u201d Zhuangzi said, \u201cAnd you\u2019re not me, how do you know that I don\u2019t know the fish happy?\u201d Huizi debated, \u201cIf you put it that way, it is clear that I\u2019m not you, so I don\u2019t know what you know. But in the same aspect, you are not the fish, so you don\u2019t know they are happy.\u201d Zhuangzi said, \u201cWhen you said that, you were already assuming that the fish are happy.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
This is one example of what being defensive and oversensitive can cause. However, there are many other results that are possible. Being defensive causes disorder and conflicts.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
There once was a person who had a job at a company, just like other people who had jobs at companies. The person\u2019s job was an admin. One day, the company got merged with a different company, and their admin was older and wiser. So naturally other people would choose the other admin as the merged company\u2019s new admin. The person was forced to work under the new admin. For some reason the new admin didn\u2019t like him. Then, the company\u2019s front desk manager left the company, and since the spot was opened and the new admin didn\u2019t like the person, the person got demoted to work at the front desk. Obviously, this was biased and unfair, but the person was forced. However, the person was reluctant to take that place because that person didn\u2019t want to get demoted. In the end, that person got fired.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Do you think that was a bit harsh?<\/p>\n\n\n\n
There was a time where I had to cooperate with a group of 3 other students for a project in class. At one point, one student started to complain about another student\u2019s idea, and they disagreed with each other\u2019s plans. Soon, the two were throwing angry words at each other. The debate got so loud it disrupted the other students from other groups, and other students started to complain about how noisy our group was, about how they couldn\u2019t concentrate. The teacher was forced to stop the production of our project.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
In the first story, Zhuangzi was just stating a thought and imagining what it was like to be a fish in water, Huizi just had to dispute, and in the end, he tripped on his own words. In the second story, the person overreacted to his boss\u2019 decision, and although it was unjust, the person had tried to quarrel and refused to accept his fate. This led to his layoff, which proves that defensiveness can cause your own downfall. In the third story, the two students arguing had led to the project\u2019s end, and no one got to work anymore. Even myself, who was not even part of the altercation, was affected. And other students in other groups were delayed or slowed down due to 2 students\u2019 defensiveness to each other.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
These three stories share a common moral: Try to be less defensive, and cooperating will go more smoothly and swiftly. When a conflict has happened, don\u2019t keep on arguing. Instead, find a way to resolve the conflict. And in the end, make up to one another. If one follows these methods, they shall become a good leader and cooperator.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
In the Warring States period of ancient China, there were 2 philosophers. Their names were Zhuangzi and Huizi. One day, they were out for a walk, and they reached a bridge. Beneath the bridge was a pond, and beneath the pond there were many fish swimming. Zhuangzi exclaimed, \u201cLook how happy the fish are, swimming … Continue reading What being defensive takes from you<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":142,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-9758","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p8KIb4-2xo","jetpack-related-posts":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sunnyyouth.org\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9758","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sunnyyouth.org\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sunnyyouth.org\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sunnyyouth.org\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/142"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sunnyyouth.org\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=9758"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/sunnyyouth.org\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9758\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":9798,"href":"https:\/\/sunnyyouth.org\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9758\/revisions\/9798"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sunnyyouth.org\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=9758"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sunnyyouth.org\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=9758"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sunnyyouth.org\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=9758"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}