The Art of War Lessons

Elliot Prusa

Social Studies

Mr. Walker

3/4/10

The Art of War Lessons

For the Past month I have been reading the Art of War. At first I found this book sort of boring but after it picked up I have taken away a lot of cool lessons from this book. By reading the numerous military strategies of author Sun Tzu I have learned lessons like how to be successful in friendships, how to achieve my goals and how to deal with challenges.

The first main lesson I learned from The Art of War was how to be successful in relationships. I know you may find it weird, that I learned about relationships when reading a military strategy book. But by reading about how Tzu’s five successful factors of warfare, I realized the same factors could be applied in friendships. If you don’t take initiative to communicate to your friend your relationship will not be a very long one. Just like in the book.

The second main lesson I learned from The Art of War was how to achieve my goals. In The Art of War Tzu’s philosophy about strategy made me think about setting up a strategy to achieve my goals. Just like in warfare when Tzu wanted to attack someone or something he developed a strategy. The same thing applies if I want to tackle a goal of mine, like getting a 4.0 GPA.

The third main lesson I learned from The Art of War was how to deal with unforeseen challenges. Tzu’s Strategy is when he studied exactly what will work in order to overcome challenges in military life. I thought how I could apply this to my life. I figured maybe I could set up a plan to work out for sports like Tzu set up a strategy in the military. The Art of War taught me a bunch of good lessons like thinking ahead and always being prepared when in a tough situation. This book has a lot of great lessons that even we today can apply to our everyday life.