Hi everyone, welcome back! A couple of weeks ago, I examined beliefs around ‘our responsibility to donate to the poor and needy” and tried to understand whether those of us who have some money or lots of it, should have a responsibility to donate or give away at least some of that money to humans who don’t have enough! This week, I want to examine ‘rules’, what they are and whether they help or hinder our lives here on Earth!
Belief: To get humans to do the right thing, we need to create and enforce a lot of rules.
Practically every family on this planet and everyone in that family knows about the rules of their families. Not only that, people are also aware of the numerous rules with regards to living life as part of this society. Through these rules, we know what is acceptable behavior and what is not. What is being kind and what is not. What is being nice and what is not. What is being selfish and what is not. We know to respect all humans regardless of their skin color or religion or sexual orientation or nationality etc. So, basically, we know what is right and what is not! And every person learns these rules as part of the growing up process and while being out there living their lives and interacting with the rest of this world. And this is how these rules keep getting passed on from one generation to the next.
But here is what I have difficulty understanding – if all these humans, who have been taught all these rules from the very beginning of their lives; who know what is right and what is wrong based on hundreds of these rules, why is it that this entire human race is still at each others throats and always ready to fight at the drop of a hat? Why do you think we continue to mistreat other people and disrespect them; especially people who don’t look like us, who don’t pray like us, who don’t wear clothes like us, who don’t like what we like, who don’t believe what we believe etc.? Wasn’t one of the rules in your family to be kind and respectful to others regardless of who that another person is? So, have we just forgotten all the rules or did we not learn them well in the first place? Here is my perspective on rules.
Folks, in the process of living this life, somewhere along the way, humans created a belief that the only way to make sure that people act as good human beings; a human who respects others, is compassionate and kind to others, does not harm others etc.; is by creating and enforcing certain rules around how humans should behave and what they should do and not do. And one of the reasons humans could have decided to create and enforce these rules is because maybe a handful of humans did something which was considered outside the category of a ‘good human being’, and so, these rules were created to force or guilt people into doing the right thing! But folks, although I agree that some rules like traffic rules are necessary to prevent chaos on the streets; however, for most part, rules are NOT what forces or guilts a person into doing the right thing – it’s the common sense of that person. The common sense which is like a GPS which guides this person throughout his life. But apparently, not too many people rely on this common sense or GPS these days. And I believe they don’t rely on this GPS because of the fact that there are way too many rules and these rules override our common sense! These rules override our common sense because we are very fearful about not following them and thus we don’t even allow ourselves the liberty to use our own heads to think for ourselves because God forbid by using our own head, we may end up offending someone and doing or saying the wrong thing. Right? But folks, if these rules were working, then the entire human race wouldn’t be such a mess, the way it is today and nobody would be getting hurt or offended! But look around you – it seems like these days, people could get offended just because you looked at them!! It feels like people are just one tiny reason away from getting offended.
So, in my attempt to try to understand rules and the reason why we create and enforce them, let’s look at rules through an example. And let’s look at this through a parenting example – one of my favorite topics :-). Every parent wants to raise kids who grow up to become good human beings and learn right from wrong. And to raise such kids, through our parenting, we communicate certain rules to our kids about what is acceptable or good behavior and what is not. And the way we enforce and encourage this good behavior is by giving out ‘reward stickers’ or ‘treats’ or ‘good job’ praises when the behavior of our kid falls into the ‘good behavior’ category. However, when our kids don’t behave per these rules, and their behavior is considered ‘bad behavior’, we yell at them or punish them and the latest trend in punishment these days seems to be time-out or sending kids to their rooms. So, as parents, although we do all this hard work in coming up with rules and making sure our kids follow them, however, so often, our kids continue to demonstrate the so called ‘bad behavior’. And baffled, we turn to parenting coaches for help who ‘listen to and work with the kids’ and guide them towards this ‘good behavior’. But here is the thing – you, as a parent could have done that yourself!! And you could have done that yourself by following your own rule about treating everyone with kindness including your own kid :-). By being kind and compassionate towards your kid especially when they are not getting it and when they are not behaving nicely! By listening to them instead of punishing them and sending them to their rooms. By hugging them and kissing them into behaving nicely! But you thought you already did your job because you created all these rules and expected your kid to follow them ‘just because you created them’. Right? Folks, even kids as young as 3-year-old know right from wrong and these kids don’t need an army of rules and punishments to guide them and turn them into people who do the right things. They just need their kind and compassionate parents who remind them that they are good kids and guide them towards their own GPS or common sense which already knows what the right thing to do is!! And those days when parents can’t reach for that kindness and compassion in the face of their kids’ bad behavior, apologizing to your kid for being human is always available!! I can imagine people falling to the floor on reading this – apologize to my kid :-)…but isn’t this what one of your rules is – apologizing to someone you have just hurt! You will just be practicing what you are preaching 🙂 and if you cannot, you shouldn’t be creating all these rules 🙂
Folks, as I have mentioned several times before, I really believe ALL human beings are good people when they come to this life on Earth; however, in the process of growing up, they somehow stop believing in all the goodness which is already in their hearts and start to believe in all these twisted beliefs which tell them that they are not perfect yet and need to ‘work on becoming perfect’ by following hundreds of these rules! Can you imagine how life would be so much easier and happier and peaceful and simpler, even if its only for one moment that we allow ourselves to believe that we were all absolutely perfect when we arrived here!! Can you imagine how amazingly beautiful our lives would have been and the kind of world we would be living in right now? The kind of world all of us have always desired to live in :-). But if we really want to live in this kind of world, we need to make the shift in perspective because without that, we will continue to create more rules in the hope that it will make this world a better place!!
And as always, feel free to leave a comment if you feel like leaving one. And until next time, follow your own rules or maybe just stop creating them 🙂
