Bloody Bridges

Jason and I were talking today and something came up that reminded me of a computer game I used to play a long time ago. The name of that game is Command & Conquer: Red Alert. If you are a player of RTSs of any kind, I'm sure you know of this series that is often referred to as the first real RTS (Real Time Strategy) game.

Anyways, I was reminded specifically of something that I had encountered on one of the missions in the game. In this mission, the objective was to (as it often is) destroy the enemy's base and all their units. The mission was set up in such a way that it was beatable, but was still a challenge. What I mean by this is that at the beginning of the mission, you have hardly any units and a very poorly defended base. You have to be constantly on your guard for surprise attacks for the first 10 minutes. What made it even worse was that fact that the enemy could attack you from many directions: from the sea with submarines, from the air with helicopters or from land with tanks and jeeps. Compounding this problem was the fact that there were 3 or 4 bridges leading out of your base. This meant that you had to watch all of them to make sure you weren't suddenly attacked with your pants down.

However, you were given 2 or 3 "saboteurs" that could destroy bridges by planting bombs on them and blowing them up. "This is so convenient!", I thought when I first played that mission. After blowing up all the bridges, I soon found the mission got a lot more annoying as I had to find alternate ways to get the job done. My point here is that although destroying the bridges early on protected me a little bit, they ultimately made my job harder in the end-game. In these cases, I would often load my game again and not blow up the bridges, allowing me to beat the mission faster. In real life however, there is no "load game" function.

My point in all of this is that you really shouldn't "burn your bridges", as the saying goes. Let's say you've been friends with Julie for the greater part of your life. You've been good friends practically since you were born, and you both know each other very well. You know her likes, dislikes, pet peeves and obsessions, as she knows yours. You know what makes her tick and you know what makes her squeal. In this way, you two are truly the best of friends. But lately she's really been getting on your nerves. She can't stop finding things to criticize you about and it seems you just can't get along. What would you do in this situation? I would probably go all up in her face and tell her that it isn't working so good anymore. And that is why today, I probably recognized my mistakes for the first time and realized that losing connections with previously good friends is a bad mistake.

What would you do? I think that in some cases, it would be appropriate to bring up the issue at hand with your friend and maybe try to work it out. Additionally, if your friend has changed his or her values and clashes with you constantly or is leading you in a direction you don't want to go, maybe you should break ties with them. But in many other cases where a bad hairday and a missed paper combine to make you super-irritable towards everyone you talk to, simply realizing that the issue might not be such a big deal could be a good decision. You might even decide to just "grin and bear it", as the saying goes. The bottom line is that when you think of what your friend will be doing with all the secrets you told her when you guys don't get along with each other anymore, you might decide not to "burn your bridges".

As well, you friend could end up being a movie star or some famous person, and you can't lose from being friends with someone who has influence. I am not however advocating insincerity. People can see right through you if that's how you want to be, and it's just disgusting. However, I am envious of the person who decided to befriend Larry Page or Sergey Brin... and put up with them until now... you can bet that that person is happy about their decision too.

So really, don't make a big deal out of something that's tiny... it ruins everyone's day and could ruin some opportunities for you in the future that might have been something if not for that non-existant friendship with someone you regret shunning years earlier. I've certainly made this mistake a few times... and regret it. Sometimes, life doesn't give second chances and you really don't want to throw yours down the drain.

kamster

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