[bombcar]

The first part you say is so spot on - fight the battles you have in front of you and ignore the potential battles everyone is yelling that are coming, those will arrive when the time comes.

And to the second, I remember reading old Wodehouse "school stories" where the teachers were complaining about the students wasting their time with worthless "book time" reading such useless works as David Copperfield. O tempora, o mores!