Bridges are great when you need to cross over to get somewhere else. We can’t drive through the river, but we can drive across the bridge over the river to get to our destination. Our relationships with others are like bridges too. We need the people in our lives to make the connections that take us where we want to go, help us get to our goals, and bring us happiness. Sometimes those connections are personal, sometimes they are professional, and sometimes they are emotional. Without our personal bridges, we stand alone.
I had a friend several years ago who had a great job. He liked what he was doing but got involved in a romantic relationship with one of the founders of the company. Things didn’t work out, and their relationship ended badly. After that, he said nothing he did was ever good enough, and then one day during a big meeting, he lost his temper, said some horrible things to her and the others in the room, and walked out, never to return. Afterward he regretted what had happened, and I asked him if there was any way to repair the situation. He said, “Nope. I’ve burned that bridge.”
As we navigate our lives, there will surely be times when others will hurt us, and damage our relationships with them. They do things we can’t accept, or they say things we can’t forget. Sometimes we decide the damage is too great, and we decide to end all contact with them. We are too hurt to allow them to stay in our lives. So, we burn that bridge. We cast it up in flames, say goodbye, and decide we’ll never come back.
But life is funny. As we go forward, we may find ourselves looping back around to where we were despite our best efforts. Our jobs change, and suddenly that person you severed all ties with becomes your co-worker, or worse yet, your boss. Or you move to a new location, you start over, and then you see that person who hurt you so badly is your new neighbor. What will you do now?
Burning bridges is a dangerous game. We never know where our lives will take us. We cannot read the future. We don’t know what developments lay ahead. It’s possible that the bridge you’ve burned will return to your life in a way that you’ll need to re-establish the connection. And if you’ve really turned away, it may be hard to reconnect. People come and go out of our lives all the time. It seems wiser then, instead of burning a bridge, to simply take a step back away from it.
Today if you face a situation where someone has crossed a line you cannot tolerate, where someone has gone too far, and you feel like extricating them completely from your life from here forward, you may want to burn that bridge. You may want to tell them off, tell them you are done, and tell them never, ever, ever to come near you again. Before you do that though, take a moment and think carefully. Perhaps the better choice is just to keep your distance from them for a time. Just walk away for a while. You don’t want them in your life as they are now, and you need space from them. But don’t burn the bridge – they may change, your lives will certainly change, and you never know what the future will bring. Leave the door open a little for now. Then if they return back into your life, you can decide how far you will let them in. And the bridge to allow that will still be there. Burning bridges is a dangerous game. Be careful how you play it.
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