One of my former colleagues said this very phrase to me once.
Let's call him JC.
Context: I was sharing with him (in my usual drama-queen fashion) the challenges I faced with certain individuals in the office (who shall remain unnamed) and my inner conflict in wanting to telling them off (actually now I can't even remember what the issue was about).
JC is one of those people doesn't say much. He's a quiet person mostly, and a thinker. He speaks a lot when he delivers his lectures in class, but in person, he is mostly pensive and thoughtful. A man of very few words.
With people like these, whenever they speak (in very few words), the impact is great.
When he said "Choose your Battles", I felt that in those few little words I should not pursue my antagonistic stance. Cease and Desist. It is just not worth it.
* * *
Now that the context is set [as you can see, I am a woman of MANY words] let me tell you a story.
A friend of mine married a Professor, who happened to have been married twice in the past with a number of children contributed by his late wife #1 and his late wife #2. For her, this is her third marriage too. Her first husband passed on and her second one divorced her. She has her own children from the first marriage, who happen to be smart, wonderful, adorable children. Hence, there is a mixed family situation going on here.
Long story short = her battle is in trying to wrest 'control'/ 'love'/ 'affection' from him (towards his children and grandson), to her. Obviously that strategy does not work well especially on a rational man who knows his priorities, so she creates a world where she dramatises the narrative and seemingly suffers alone. Frankly I am worried for her delusion.
Back to me, because I am a self-professed drama queen... my own hubby, despite him being a single person, has a family and particularly nieces and nephews who usually crashes at his house (one lives with him permanently). He is everyone's favourite single uncle, and when I came into the picture, I try not to disrupt the balance (although technically speaking, that is impossible). If I had taken my friend's approach, we will have a one-sided battle with me being on the offensive (hubby, the wise person whom he is, will keep quiet) and he will eventually becomes fed-up with me, and our relationship becomes uncomfortable, and maybe one day he will ask me to leave?
Well I am not too worried about leaving, but I would like to have a comfortable, mature, understanding relationship while I am here.
Hence my strategy is to keep quiet, respect his family relationships, and stay more at my own house. Being in that house with the locked room with another 'adopted' niece's things just create minor anxiety for me, no matter how much I console myself. So I need to try a new tack: she is not important to me, she will come get her things when the time is right, thank God that is not my house, and I can come home where I am more welcome/ where there is clarity (despite my past baggage, I have come clean with that relationship: it did not work out, I have snipped it off by choice, and we make good of whatever semblance of communication we have now).
According to hubby, a man is a simple being. He just wants to live his life in peace. If I continue harping on unnecessary things, his life will not be at peace (I think). So, in the circumstances, being mature is the way to go. The room and that person is so insignificant in our lives that we should not even think about it, and I should continue doing what is important such as TAKE CARE OF MY GROWING CHILDREN, teach my classes, finish my PhD, develop my online modules, write some papers, and essentially manage my life better. So much to do, so little time, so many temptations by insignificant things and people to derail my plans.
Another friend, let's call her FZA, said: Chin up. YES MOST DEFINITELY.
We are mature, wise, independent ladies. All these little things are immaterial and are just dust. Wipe them off and move on. We have bigger dragons to slay! ♛
