Give In & Win

GIVE IN AND WIN
By
William Cottringer, Ph.D.

“Conscience is what hurts when everything else feels so good.” ~ Unknown author.

It was a rainy night in August of 1964 when this naïve 19-year old kid was assigned guard duty at the make-shift rear gate of Tan Son Nhut AB in Saigon, Vietnam. The gate barriers were two flimsy metal frames with three stands of rusty, wobbly barbed wire that wouldn’t stop the huffing and puffing of three little pigs. Not very reassuring. We had heard earlier that the Viet Cong were going to crash the gate with a car bomb and start their attack on the base. That was the first time I felt real fear of death in my mind, heart and hands. The fear was real.

When I showed up at 12 midnight that night with my puny AR-15, I was thinking about abandoning the target post which I knew I could not possibly hope to secure or live though. I was dead meat for sure. I prayed like I never prayed before for some guidance as to what to do. I didn’t like the idea of being a coward but I didn’t want to be dead either. I knew staying and doing my best was the right thing to do and so I made a deal with God to do just this in exchange for His protection over my safety.

Thankfully, I made it through the night and there wasn’t any imminent attack as we had been warned about. This was not the first time I made such a deal in my life, but it was the first time my life depended upon the connection between the right choice and a life saving outcome. Noticing that connection and feeling those results firsthand got my attention for many years.

We seem to learn important lessons in life and then forget them quickly, just to be forced to relearn them all over again. The rules of life only become simple and clear after we have tried to understand life backwards and live it forwards, with much bleeding, bruises and broken bones. Maybe we appreciate success more by having to weather so many painful and uncomfortable failures.

At this point in my life, the rules seem very clear, as are the consequences for obeying them or violating them. It’s black and white. But knowing all this wisdom is of no use to me in trying to help others prevent unnecessary unhappiness and needless failures, because we all have to go on our separate journeys to learn this reality the hard way. The only consolation about not even being able to prevent life “injuries” with my own children is that grandchildren seem to want to listen more. Grandkids are a blessing in this regard.

Adam and Eve started it all in the Garden of Eden and it was probably planned that way. We are all given a simple rule book in the beginning of our lives that guarantees success or failure. Successes and failures are related to the amount of listening and obeying we do. This rule book comes in the form of a moral conscience that says “yes” or “no,” which we seem to want to spend a lifetime arguing against and disobeying mostly through pride, all the while paying more attention to our psychological consciences.

I think the confusion comes into play with our feelings. The only way we know for sure what to do is to pay attention to how it all makes us feel, before, during and after each choice, action and consequence we experience. The thing to figure out is what is worth more—giving in to your psychological conscience and feeling good for a short while or giving into your moral conscience and feeling good with the long range consequences. Short term pleasure for long time pain or short term pain for log term gain. Give in to the wrong conscience and you lose; give into the right one and win.

I guess what amazes me most is how easy it has been for me to forget this simple rule of life. When you follow the rules that have already be established you win and when you violate them or try to reinvent them to your liking, like Adam and Eve, you lose. But the brilliant way this was all set up is that you lose only so you can enjoy winning. So even if you are losing, your winning time will come. How soon that happens is a choice.

So it really all comes down to a choice to follow this natural rule, win and enjoy the beneficial consequences or take chances with not doing so, lose and suffer the negative Karma. You really can’t blame it on anything or anyone else. You get exactly what you ask for and so if you don’t like what you are getting, the answer is simple. Change what you are asking for by giving in and winning.