Xiang Yu was a Chinese general in the third century BC who took his troops across the Yangtze River into enemy territory and performed an experiment in decision making. He crushed his troops’ cooking pots and burned their ships.

He explained this was to focus them on moving forward — a motivational speech that was not appreciated by many of the soldiers watching their retreat option go up in flames. But Xiang Yu would be vindicated, both on the battlefield and in the annals of social science research.

Now that’s interesting because what he did flies in the face of what most people like to do. He purposefully throws away other options. Keeping options open equates to not losing something and we humans hate losing anything-unless, like Xiang Yu we can see that the ‘losing’ is what will procure the eventual winning. See my How to make decisions

We find it very painful to close options-any options-just in case, well, you know, we might need them some day. Check this immensely thought provoking article

From the material hoarder who can’t chuck out old newspapers to the marriage phobic guy who can’t commit-just in case. We hang on to dead relationships, keep contact details of people we no longer really want to see and don’t like to say no to new work projects because who knows when the opportunity will come again.

Bystander apathy rather than just being a dumb form of group think may also be in part caused by the fearful resistance of giving up the option not to help.

So knowing what to ignore, letting go of options (even when sometimes you are not sure if they would have worked out for the good) and sometimes being ruthless enough to chuck out all other options means you are at least steering your ship. As Rhett Butler said in ‘Gone with the wind’, as he throw out a major life option,: ‘Frankly my dear I don’t give a damn!’

Mark