Living life provides an excellent classroom for learning. It would be easier if we had a manual at the beginning giving clear and unquestionable instructions on how to proceed in life.
Each situation would be so easy to deal with as we navigated our way along our path of life if we could only tell which bridges were safe to cross and which ones we should burn and never cross back over again.
I do not kid myself and think that if I had this sort of information, it would have made any difference to my behaviors. As a young man, I thought I knew it all, and I would cross each bridge on my terms and have no fear of the consequence. I didn’t want advice or guidance, I tried to cross the bridge and get to the other side, and if it was painful, well, that was life.
Over the years, a strange thing started to happen. All bridges looked scary to me, and I refused to cross any of them. This phobia led to a life malaise that was stuck in the same place. Even though I looked into the mist surrounding the bridge and wondered, “What is over there?” I lacked the courage to step across it and find out for sure.
As I got older, I felt compelled toward the bridges in front of me, I would tentatively take a step onto them and then retreat to the safety of the known, but deep in the back of my mind, I would think, “Is this it? Is this all there is in life and all I can look forward to?”
As the years passed, it became clear that life was happening out there across those bridges, and I had better get moving in one direction or another, or it would be too late. Burn one bridge or cross another. That was the option but do it now, or soon all of them will be burned by time.
With little planning but immense hope, I finally took the first tentative steps onto a bridge that looked sturdy enough to carry me across the abyss of danger below. Before I crossed, I torched the other bridges around, and there was no turning back. The bridge I was crossing would define my life and how I lived it.
As I moved along the bridge, walking step by step forward, I grasped the rail for some reassurance, but the only feeling was one of excitement wrapped in fear. All the years in limbo had fooled me into a false sense of self-confidence, which now was clearly on display.
Some will tell you that it is an excellent policy never to burn bridges because you will never know when you need them. I argue that recognizing the bridges to burn and the ones to maintain is one of the significant lessons in developing wisdom.
