Hollywood legend Kirk Douglas hands his 21-year-old son a check for $10,000. "Okay. You're on your own," Kirk says. Michael looks at the check. "That's great, Dad, but I still have two years of college tuition left." Kirk doesn't care. The lesson has started. The bank is closed. For the next 30 years, Kirk Douglas proudly brags to his other children and everyone who would listen: "Michael never asked me for another dime. I gave him that money, and that was it. I made him a man." He believed his extreme tough love had worked perfectly. Until Michael finally sat him down three decades later. "Dad, you remember those beautiful, soft Italian leather suitcases you bought me for Christmas back then?" Michael asked. "Yeah," Kirk smiled. "Well, I found out that each suitcase could hold exactly 22 kilos of marijuana." To pay his tuition and survive his father's brutal lesson in self-reliance, Michael became a drug smuggler. He moved product across the country using the exact same bags his father bought him. Society glorifies tough love. We are told that cutting the safety net and applying maximum pressure is the only way to build true character. But when you push someone to the absolute edge, they don't always learn the moral lesson you intended. Sometimes, they just learn how to survive by any means necessary.