Using the Golden Rule as a Guide for Life

Stories about Life
1
The first paradigm I have about life is that you need to know what your duty in life is and then you need to do it. This depends upon having a state in life—i.e., a role to play. So whether you are a teacher, a member of a family, a soldier, or manager or whatever the case may be there are going to be expectations and your duty is to fulfill those expectations. I constructed this paradigm after growing up without really too many rules or much of a sense of place. It was only once I finally began to settle down and make a decision about where I wanted to be in life that everything came into focus. I could see what was required of me and what to work towards. This gives a person a sense of peace and mission. It takes away the doubt and worry about what will be. When you are doing your duty in life, everything else disappears because you are doing what is important and what you need to be doing.
The second paradigm I have about life is that your life is not your own. It does not belong to you. I myself used to live selfishly because I thought you only live once so you might as well live it up and live it to the fullest. But nothing I did ever made me feel full, like I was getting the maximum amount out of life. What I realized was that I was trying to live for me, to make myself happy—but there is nothing I can do to make myself happy because I did not make myself or the world. There is one greater than me who made everything, and that is the source of happiness. So how does one get to that source? By following the rules—the commandments that were given and that one can find in the Christian religion. Basically, to live for others and to love God and love one’s neighbor without rest is the rule here. This is the essence of the Golden Rule. This is what brings me more happiness and peace than anything I have ever known. I never would have arrived at the conclusion by myself. I got there thanks to my family who helped me to see what it was I was missing in life.
These assumptions about how to live were arrived at simply by living my life and trying to figure out what was best for me. I got to a point where I could not figure out what to do with my future and I knew I had to make a choice. I asked people for guidance but ultimately I knew it was my decision. So the only thing that I could think to do that I had not tried yet was to just pray about it and ask God for guidance. I found that God is always listening and waiting for us to come to Him for help. That is how I arrived at these paradigms.
2
The positive consequences of having these rules—1) do your duty according to your state in life, and 2) follow the Golden Rule—are that they serve as a set of parameters for conduct. Basically, anything outside of these parameters is out of bounds. So if one has any questions about how to treat a co-worker, for instance, even if it is one that one does not like, all one has to do is think of the Golden Rule and it will be clear: treat others as you would like to be treated. And if one needs any added help, all he has to do is think of what duty he owes to this coworker as a coworker. That will eliminate any question of how to behave.
The negative consequences of these rules are that they can be hard to follow at times, and if one breaks one of the rules it can be difficult to get oneself back in the mode of following them. Once one is on the other side of the barrier, one wants to roam “free” without constraint, and that can get one in more trouble. It can also cause one to think poorly of others who are not living by these same rules. There has to be a degree of humility and acceptance when adhering to these rules. One has to remember not to judge others.
3
My rules impact the way others see me because they always tend to act like I am “better” than them or that I am a “good” person even though I don’t feel that way at all about myself. They always recognize that I try to live morally and that there are certain things I will not do because it goes against my religious beliefs. Usually, I work with a lot of people who are not religious so it is a surprise for them to find someone like me. That is why I think they react that way towards me. I try not to take it badly or to be insulted by it even though it can sometimes feel like they are trying to make me seem “different” in a negative way. But when they kind of put that label on me it sometimes makes me what to break my own rules so that I can show others that I am not what they think I am. Yet I know that kind of thinking is no good either, so I just try to offer it up and keep on going in the way that I know to be the way to happiness.
Some people are impacted by these rules in a positive way. They see me living in a way that is inspiring or that they think makes sense and they want to live by those rules, too. I have made a lot of friends in this way as well.
In either case, I know that there will be some who are put off and some who are attracted by the rules I try to live by. That is just the way the world is. It is a good idea never to accuse anyone of bad intentions, however, as Stone, Patton and Heen (1999) point out. One should never try to put bad intentions on someone else, because you never know why people are acting the way they are towards you. It can be completely innocent yet we interpret it incorrectly.
4
An alternative to my story would be that I did not embrace the idea of doing my duty in life or living by the Golden Rule but instead adopted an Ethical Egoism, in which I lived entirely for myself and believed that the ends justified the means. This is the type of “rule” that many people have lived by, including the Enron leaders who caused that company to collapse because they were justifying their own fraudulent activities on the basis that it was making them and their friends rich, even though it was deceiving investors and regulators. I could have easily gone down this road, but what held me back was the clear indication that it might not end well.
I think that if I had decided to live life without these rules I would probably be very unhappy and unsatisfied in life. These rules are what have helped me obtain a sense of place and peace and harmony. I feel like I am using my talents for something good and I like that. I think that if I were pursuing some self-interest without having a sense of duty, I would be very miserable. I would still be questioning my place in the world and wondering what I was supposed to be doing.
References
Stone, D., Patton, B. & Heen, S. (1999). Difficult conversations. Penguin.