Most of us are familiar with the golden rule. “Do unto others as you would have them do unto you”. Less are aware that this is actually a quote that is taken from the Bible. These are the words of Jesus according to the testimony of Luke and Matthew.
The golden rule has been referenced extensively in literature, both as a moral principle to guide our behaviour, and as an effective strategy to allocate resources as studied by game theorists. Today I stumbled upon a new perspective to appreciate the golden rule.
Rediscovering purpose
I was having a conversation with a buddy over lunch today, and we talked about all our hopes and dreams that we had when we were younger, and how they seemed to have been painted over by this gray monotonous reality that we have accepted for ourselves. Wake up, go to work, eat, scroll on some social media, go to bed tired, and we are ready to do it all over again tomorrow. Somewhere along the line, we had forgotten whatever it was that got us excited to live our lives that we had when we were younger. We had forgotten our dreams.
And so I shared with my friend something that I had come across on the internet recently that I thought was an interesting way to rediscover meaning in our lives. Some guy on some podcast (I can’t remember, it might have been a random TikTok, I am not omitting the original author on purpose) had mentioned that to figure out what your calling is in life, just look around think about what you wished others would do. There will be times in our lives where we catch ourselves complaining about others. “I wished people treated each other with more kindness and respect.” “I wished my phone wouldn’t lag so much” “I wish there were easier ways to consistently eat healthier without breaking the bank.” The complaints could be on any topic in life, and most of the time, after muttering our complaints, our annoyance is slightly alleviated and we have mentally relieved ourselves of that inconvenience.
However, if we were to be slightly more sensitive to those inconveniences or dissatisfactions in life, we would perhaps realise that those very things that upset us, are what we have been called upon to make a difference to.
What you expect from the world, is what is expected of you
In a way, this is simply another manifestation of the golden rule, but in a larger context. Instead of looking at it only as a principle to follow for interpersonal relationships with others, let’s use it to moderate our attitude towards life.
We have grown accustomed to expecting certain comforts in life. We demand a level of consistency of service that society provides for us. And if we are always in a state of mind where we are thinking of what others can do for us, it is very difficult to derive any purpose from that kind of experience. It makes sense logically too, why this is so. If we are expecting others to make our lives comfortable for us, we are outsourcing the responsibility and stewardship of our lives to those we are laying our expectations upon.
And so a quick and simple way to rediscover our “dreams”, or meaning in our lives would be to identify all the areas in our lives where we have complaints. And the moment we have some expectations in any way shape or form, redirect that expectation inwards instead of outwards to others. Maybe we are annoyed specifically by certain inconveniences because we are the ones who are sensitive enough to identify how to make the world a better place in that particular manner. The problems in this world that our unique perspectives in life allow us to identify, are precisely the ones that we should volunteer to take up the mantle to solve for. Maybe, when we have done for other what we wished others could do for us, then from the bottom of our hearts we are able to confidently say that with lives we have made a difference on this world.
tossyturny 