Go is an ancient Chinese board game. I always want to learn more about it, but never really have the time until recently.

The more I understand Go, the more I appreciate the beauty of the game.

The basic move is extremely simple: If you want to capture an enemy, just place sufficient numbers of your pieces surrounding the target such that they are completely cut off from their kind, then they become your PoW.

In order to win, a player must occupy a bigger territory than his/her opponents at the end of the game.

However, I can assure you that you cannot achieve this goal by simply just battling your enemy out.

In fact, focusing too much on winning individual battles may end up costing you the ultimate victory. Simply put, since it usually takes more pieces to take over enemy land, if you spend your resources (i.e. pieces) to warring, instead of territory building, you may risk not occupying enough land. Battles should only be a mean to secure your territory or weaken your opponent, not an end in itself.

How does it related to life? Well, sometimes don’t we focus too much on immediate, short-term gain (akin to capturing enemy pieces in Go), and forget our bigger pictures in life?