Grudges—we all have them. But they look different for everyone.

Maybe they are against people who wronged us a while ago.

Or maybe from a petty argument with a friend, a former boss, a coach who cut you from a team, or a professor who gave you a bogus grade on an assignment.

Whoever your grudge is against, I am about to ask you to do something crazy.

Forgive them.

Why?

Because burning bridges is an extremely harmful habit that will end up leaving you with nowhere to go.

For those of you who don't know what burning bridges means, it's cutting someone off from your life completely who used to be significant to you in some way or another. It's a metaphor for closing people off from your life and leaving with unfinished business or animosity.

Authority figures are one of the most commonly burned bridges. People have a bad working experience, quit, and say some words that can't be unsaid when they are officially done with the job. This is harmful because this is a loss of a potential reference, in my book is also a waste of a work experience if you can't list them on your resume.

Even if they really were a pain to work for—okay, but at least you are in the clear for acting respectfully when you leave, instead of giving them a reason to resent you and eliminate a potential reference. You never know how people are going to help you out in the future.

Friends are another burnable bridge. It's hard to find people outside of your family that you can trust. When they break that trust, cutting them off almost seems like the best (and easiest) answer.

This is a dangerous habit. Once you burn one bridge, this process becomes easier, and suddenly you have a rock hard wall up, unable to let anyone else in.

The one thing all these groups of people have in common—they are only human. We can't expect perfection out of everyone. However, you never know what the future hold, or if you will cross paths with them again.


I encourage you to mend your friendships and relationships because it's easier to mend a piece of a bridge than to burn the whole entire thing.