The golden rule states, “Do unto others as you would have them do unto you.” (Luke 6:31) If you are new to personal development, it’s a pretty good place to start. But in the end it will get you in trouble. Everyone is different and believes that they should be treated uniquely, based on their preferences.
Therefore, treating people based on your preferences will generally create conflict… especially with strangers. Kindness seems like a good idea to most personal development students but in some cases it backfires. For example: Many people were raised in environments where kindness was seen as weak and easy to take advantage of. In some cases you must take on a more dominant style in order to be in harmony. That proves to be difficult to the “positive crew”.
Most personal development students think that people who aren’t positive are less than people who are. This is nothing more then The Drunk Monkey using personal development as a new tool to protect you from all the “different” and therefore potentially dangerous people in the world.
Again, if you are dealing with people who are not in your tribe and treat them the way you want to be treated, don’t get disappointed when they don’t play by your rules. Because they don’t know your rules. The golden rule leads to righteousness. I’m sure that Luke wanted us to be kind to people but the truth is we use The Golden Rule to hold others accountable to behavior they never agreed to.
If you don’t take the time to understand who people are and step in line with their style of dealing with the world, you will get in trouble. Things won’t be easy for you.
One Comment
This is so spot-on true. Principles and lessons I learned from you years ago and seem to have forgotten. Thanks for the reminder and wake up call.