Waving the White Flag

Oct 13, 2007 Moved from Blogger

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Waving the white flag is an international sign of surrender. You guys probably all already know that. The purists will say that it’s a symbol of truce, not surrender. But most of the time, the person waving it is the weaker party, and as such it’s become accepted as an international symbol of surrender.

Its meaning is “the symbol itself, not the flag”, as Word Flags 101 puts it. We’ve seen white “flags” made out of a whole variety of things.

What strikes me is the color of the flag. White. White normally represents purity or cleanliness. To me personally, white represents something of a fresh start. Like a blank white piece of paper, on which anything can be written.

Don’t see waving the white flag (surrendering) as giving up. It’s a way to start afresh. And sometimes to start afresh, you need to surrender to whatever has already happened. Instead of constantly trying to fight a battle you can’t win, sometimes it’s better to surrender and start afresh, in a new battle. One that you can win.

What situations are you in now where you would be better off waving the white flag?

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This entry was posted on Saturday, October 13th, 2007 at 2:43 pm and is filed under Moved from Blogger. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.
  • Anonymous

    personally,i feel that white symbolises death.Waving the white flag means ending all the hopes and desires to win a battle.the ones who wave the white flag before losing the battle is the real loser.they'll never learn anything from the battle.to them,winning is of paramount importance and defeats the purpose of having a battle.the purpose of the battle is to enjoy and learn from the process and the focus should not only be focused on winning.for example,when playing games etc,some people exit from the game when they think they are losing soon(waving the white flag).they gave up the chances of winning the game.such people will never improve on their skills of the game as their focus is on winning and nothing else.

  • Derrick Kwa

    Hm. In what way does white symbolise death?

    And well, it's about knowing when to quit. Yes winning isn't everything, in the sense that if you fail, it isn't the end of the world. If you fail, you can learn from it and move on. But it doesn't mean that you should enter a game without aiming to win. And there comes a point where you need to quit in order to focus on what you can succeed at.

    For more information on the value of quitting, you can read The Dip by Seth Godin.

  • Anonymous

    personally,i feel that white symbolises death.Waving the white flag means ending all the hopes and desires to win a battle.the ones who wave the white flag before losing the battle is the real loser.they’ll never learn anything from the battle.to them,winning is of paramount importance and defeats the purpose of having a battle.the purpose of the battle is to enjoy and learn from the process and the focus should not only be focused on winning.for example,when playing games etc,some people exit from the game when they think they are losing soon(waving the white flag).they gave up the chances of winning the game.such people will never improve on their skills of the game as their focus is on winning and nothing else.

  • Derrick Kwa

    Hm. In what way does white symbolise death?

    And well, it’s about knowing when to quit. Yes winning isn’t everything, in the sense that if you fail, it isn’t the end of the world. If you fail, you can learn from it and move on. But it doesn’t mean that you should enter a game without aiming to win. And there comes a point where you need to quit in order to focus on what you can succeed at.

    For more information on the value of quitting, you can read The Dip by Seth Godin.

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