48 Laws of Power by Robert Greene: The 3rd Law | Part Two.

The 3rd Law of Power states that you "Conceal Your Intentions." 

When I was innocent, I thought I could win in life without being political. I thought love was all there was to finding a life-partner. If she loves me, she'll come along. Why toast and spin someone? If it is meant to be, it will be. How so wrong I was? I spent eleven (11) solid years chasing one in vain. I was young, stupid, and a nerd. I did not come with the sweet talks, flowers, dinners, etc. I was a church boy chasing a church girl, but church girls are made of flesh and blood also. Niceness was not enough.

I did not find it from the pulpit either. It seemed we were alone when it came to our individual struggles, but were pulled, pushed, and beaten with words when it came to the seeming communal issues. There was the a disparity between the hot fire messages from the pulpit and the realities we hear on the corridors and car parks. There was something amiss, something missing, or so I thought, or I was the one playing the fool.

Then at work, what was the value of friendship? Good until one has power over the other, then the demons, which have been dormant all along become awoken. People are not satisfied with the reason they came to work - their take home.  They want more. They suddenly realize their middle name is Joseph and had been promised a throne. They want to be kings and queens, and dominate others even their former colleagues, mates, friends, etc. Their joy becomes making life uncomfortable and miserable for others. The lack of peace and congruency in their own lives get the better of them. 

They kill their friends in secret rooms, but laugh and smile with them in public. Once I had an expatriate friend tell me what my fellow Nigerian friends were saying about me in meetings. Everyone had agreed to move forward on an issue, but it was my own supposed friends holding on to the guns. The same ones pretending to be friends. For them, they were managing their emotions in public, while making an impression in secret as one who could be trusted to execute "evil" orchestrations.

I could continue with many more war stories, but I'll be at the risk of boring you. Let me suffice to say, "wisdom came to me from all these." Ancient wisdom teaches us to "be as wise as the devil, but never lose our good nature." This is the beauty in the genius of the AND, as against the tyranny of the OR. We can execute extreme ownership, emotional intelligence and maturity, psychological safety and warfare, and the art of supreme warfare without losing our good nature, without being soiled by evilness, without selling our souls to the devil.

The Saint.