footnote to a midnight talk at the family corporation

In the age of modernization and globalization, you may find it surprising that classical philosophy may still be found fresh and relevant in your personal context. Thus, let me leave this challenge to you, so that you may discover a major conquest which you might have not imagined ever before.
You think global, but soon realize that the entire world is up against you. You eye one position that places you on top of the world, but being the most coveted spot on earth, it is a spot that everybody else is clamoring for. You need to abandon your global conquest.
You think national, and while this is considerably a smaller conquest than the whole world you had previously desired, it occurs to you that this time, an entire nation is trying to conquer it, too. Your fellow citizens run after this one special spot, and you feel the requirement to let go.
You think local, and it seems the competition has significantly decreased, but you understand that like your previous attempts, this local area is most wanted by others, too. You watch them claw and scamper and worm their way to reach their goal, so relinquishing the conquest is all you feel like doing now.
And it is here that an ancient philosophy from the Orient thrusts itself out for your enlightenment: the world, the nation, the local community are all too enormous for you, so why not conquer yourself first of all? Fears, sorrows, insecurities and the like lurk inside you, so go try weeding these out in order to deem yourself fit for external battles. In short, the biggest challenge that you are up to is personal conquest, because only when you achieve self-redemption that you eventually find it less difficult and daunting to seek colonization of the community, of the country, or of the world. Colossal conquests paradoxically start small-time, and in your case, it starts within you.