Scratch The Golden Rule and Live By The Grey Rule
Over the weekend I got a little bit sick and had to sit down for a while. During that time, I spent a lot of time in my yoga books and reflecting on what I was learning. During a meditation, something that came up for me was my view on disappointment. An ongoing narrative in my life has been, “When I get excited, I will be disappointed.” This stems from my issues surrounding my relationship with my dad. I thought if I reframed the narratives individually in areas I experience disappointment, I wouldn’t get disappointed anymore. This is NOT the case.
The shift for me occurred when I realized it wasn’t the excitement that brought about ongoing disappointment, it was expectations. The reality is, that I expect others to treat me the way I want to be treated simply because that’s what we were all taught about the golden rule. Turns out, the real world just simply doesn’t work that way. We all have our own internal rules we live by. We have our priorities, boundaries, values, and standards. We behave in accordance to what’s a priority to us, not what the priorities of others are.
If we all treat others the way WE want to be treated, we are bound to be disappointed when that isn’t reciprocated. So here I present to you the Something Positive for Positive People Gray Rule: “Others can only treat you (at best) the way they treat themselves.” Let that sink in, and then download the latest episode of Something Positive for Positive People on your favorite podcast player and listen to me ramble through my philosophy around this.
Disclaimer: So, as you hear the word platinum in the podcast episode, swap it out with gray because there’s a platinum rule which states to treat others the way THEY want to be treated. Looks like there’s a book on Business by Tony Alessandra, Ph.D., and Michael J. O’Connor, Ph.D. if you wanna check that out. (I didn’t check on this until after I recorded.)
Stay positive!
