Burn the Ships

How Modern Society Teaches us to Avoid Responsibility

The year was 1519, the new world had recently been discovered and explorers were flocking to the mysterious land across the pond in droves, trying to solidify their bloodline in history books, and expand their people’s knowledge of the world. Hernán Cortés, formally Hernán Cortés de Monroy y Pizarro Altamirano, 1st Marquess of the Valley of Oaxaca, was a Spanish explorer and conquistador who, in the aforementioned year, led an expedition of 600 men to the shores of what is today Mexico. Upon landing on the foreign shores, his men were on low spirits. They were tired from the voyage, less than enthusiastic about a military campaign on foreign soil, and were vastly outnumbered by the native forces. In a history making decision, he announced to his men that they were to burn the ships. No retreat, and no turning back! The men were left with only one option and that was to fight or die.

Often in life, we fall into complacency because we can. We have the option to not fight. We have the option to simply sit back and be comfortable. Society has softened us. We have never faced life or death decisions. But it is these very decisions that create the toughest of people. We must remember, that crisis is the mother of all innovation. Why is it that a vast majority of the humanity’s greatest achievements occurred during war times. We create and innovate when there is a reason to, especially a reason such as war. It is the same principle that motivates people to get off their behind’s when they have children. You now have someone depending on you, and you have no option but to grind and provide a life for them. You have a fire lit under your bottom, that burns so hot, there is no sitting back down.

“A long while ago, a great warrior had to make a decision which ensured his success on the battlefield. He was about to send his armies against a powerful foe, whose men outnumbered his own. He loaded his soldiers into boats, sailed to the enemy’s country, unloaded soldiers and equipment, then gave the order to burn the ships that had carried them. Addressing his men before the first battle, he said, ‘You see the boats going up in smoke. That means that we cannot leave these shores alive unless we win! We now have no choice - we win or we perish!’ They won. Every person who wins in any undertaking must be willing to burn his ships and cut all sources of retreat. Only by so doing can one be sure of maintaining that state of mind known as a burning desire to win, essential to success.” ― Napoleon Hill

The problem is that we always have a way out nowadays. Governments push policies that have disastrous effects on people and promote infantility. People are encouraged to bail out of raising children because of insane legal changes that reward people for chasing their puerile urges to shirk duty. For instance, mothers are encouraged to divorce as they will receive child support payments and don’t have any of the commitment to deal with. They don’t have to deal with the ups and downs of a marriage. On the other hand, people engage in carnal frivolity without the fear of repercussion because of the safety nets of abortion and birth control. We are encouraging immoral behaviour and in turn creating a society where sex and sexuality are devalued and in turn destroying the family unit by making responsibility an afterthought. We are being taught to not take responsibility for our actions, hence the skyrocketing divorce rates, the single parent households, and all the issues that arise from these implications of divesting responsibility.

Its a small wonder that the people who support these destructive policies are always the leftist types who would rather tweet empty platitudes about “equality” on their three thousand dollar macs in hipster cafe’s located in gentrified neighborhoods, than actually work for their pay. They espouse pseudo-egalitarian policies, rather than meritocratic ones that would force them to step up and assume responsibility. It is a childish endeavor to negate one’s birthright to assumption of responsibility. We as humans must assume responsibility or perish. Now that society has created so many “outs” or safety nets, we encourage people to never grow up. If your don’t “burn the ships”, in other words eliminate the safety nets, you doom a society to their own sloth and eternal juvenility.

Another example of this, is the welfare fallback. The name alone, “welfare”, is cunningly deceiving. It implies that it is for the welfare of the people. But this couldn’t be further from the truth. It is an empty placard. In reality it is a sinister crutch that people mistake for some sort of egalitarian policy with which they will solve poverty. However in reality, there is no bigger lie than the idea that taking other people’s money and distributing it to others will somehow benefit society. More importantly, it stifles innovation, and makes sure that people who are unmotivated, stay unmotivated, and those who are motivated, are punished for being so. There are countless instances of welfare states having ever growing populations of people staying on welfare instead of working, instead of being creative and innovating. Canada, Sweden, and most of the Western world, has turned into a conglomerate of Socialist welfare states in which it is becoming increasingly common, not to work. If you never force people to assume responsibility and always allow them a fallback, they will forever be stuck in a revolving door of perpetual self destruction. There must be a fire under us forcing us to look only forward. We must burn our ships.

“Don’t look back – you’re not going that way.” — Mary Engelbreit

Long have passed the days of conquistadors and explorations of new worlds. However the message remains the same. If you leave your ships in the harbour, you will never commit. This is why people give up in relationships so often. Both men and women leave their options open, for far too long. They allow multiple suitors to orbit as they slowly sift through the options. Always contemplating “oh but this person has this positive and this person has that one”. They never commit due to leaving their ships in the harbour. Even when they do pick, they really only half commit. When the going gets tough, they leave. They give themselves the option to give up. Once we tell ourselves, there is no giving up on our family. Once we tell ourselves that it is through thick and thin that we fight. Once we tell ourselves that there is no heading back, whether in work, in life, in romance. That is when the real work begins. But that is also when the real reward comes. True victory in life, moral victory, comes from the bearing of one’s cross. The only way to be a true leader is to carry your burden, and not allow yourself to even contemplate the idea of heading in the direction from whence you began. As a leader, how can you expect of those who follow you, to be committed if you yourself are always staring at the abort button instead of the mission goal. Burning your ships does not exclude changing course, or tailoring the path as you progress to accommodate for the uncontrollable variables. However, no meaningful pursuit or endevour have a chance of success if you have an the off-ramp.

Welcome weary traveller. The road I take it, was long and fraught with peril. Here you may rest your head. - Project Lazarus