How to Live Without Options - and Why It's the Key to Happiness

Julius Caesar stood on the bank of a shallow river called the Rubicon. It was 49 BC, and he was out of options. The Senate, marshalled by his rival Pompey, had ordered him to surrender his command in Gaul and return to Rome as a private citizen, which in practice meant prosecution, ruin, and probably either exile or death. The river was the legal edge of Italy, and Roman law forbade any general from leading an army across it. To cross with his legion was treason - an open declaration of civil war he could never take back.Plutarch and Suetonius both describe him stalling at the water’s edge, arguing with his officers, weighing the slaughter on one side against the humiliation on the other.And then the moment came. He quoted a line from Menander, a Greek playwright he loved, “let the die be cast,” and led the Thirteenth Legion across into Italy. A few years later he was master of Rome - and by extension, the world. We still quote that phrase, the die is cast. The crossing was the last…