Once you cross your Rubicon, there is no return. That’s what happened to Julius Caesar when he crossed the River Rubicon in North East Italy, defying the rule set by the Senate that prohibited a general from moving to a territory outside his designated area of control. Caesar got into hot waters with the Senate which resulted in him fighting and winning a 3-year battle against the state. Not surprising as he was a brilliant military general.
This expression survives to this day describing a risky move that we take in life after which, we could not return to the previous state. Depending on the circumstances, this crossing is always consequential, requiring a great deal of courage as sometimes the outcome can end in disaster.
Clearly, crossing the Rubicon tends to be a singular decision and act; it is never mutual or in agreement with others. More importantly, for this to be truly a Rubicon crossing, there has to be a significant element of resistance by others who fundamentally disagree with the action taken.
All of us will have, at one time or another, found ourselves on the banks of our own Rubicon. We stand there, wondering, calculating and hesitating. Finally, we either pluck enough courage to take the risk and cross or, we consider the consequences but don’t like the odds so, we stay there hoping one day to gather our courage and try again.
In our personal lives, we sometimes cross the Rubicon by terminating personal intimate relationships. This crossing brings a lot of pain and harm to people we care about a great deal, such as children in the case of a divorce. Ironically, there are probably as many unhappy marriages as there are divorces going on all around us, where one side sacrifice their happiness for the sake of children and often end up staying in a loveless, unhappy marriage that ends up adversely affecting the children more than the adults, hence negating the very reason for staying together in the first place.
Sometimes, friendships can fizzle out for one friend who then goes ahead and terminates the relationship with a complete surprise and resentment by the other friend. My guess is that such friendships are not mutually appreciated where the terminating side values the friendship significantly less than the other so, the crossing price is relatively affordable; just a short period of embarrassment and discomfort.
There is also the professional Rubicon crossing. Break up of business partnerships; firing a member of staff, resignation from a position; hostile takeovers; termination of contracts, and so on. These crossing can, on occasions, be very dramatic and painful but in the commercial world, this kind of behaviour is part of the rich tapestry of business behaviour and therefore is entirely expected and accepted.
Back to the original act of crossing the actual Rubicon River, which turned out to be the making of Julius Caesar who went on to become a powerful ruler of the Roman Empire but, at a price. Eight years later, Julius Caesar was assassinated by some Senate members, amongst them his friend Brutus who applied the fatal and final thrust of the knife.
