Why the Golden Rule Can’t Make Your Relationships Work

My hypersensitivity to various things is one weakness that I have yet to overcome. Being quite the idealist type, I often get hurt whenever people don’t speak or act in a way that I thought would be courteous or considerate with others.

This is one reason I try to avoid many conversations with strangers. Even short talks over the phone or internet can affect me and leave me bothered about the way those talks turned out.

Why couldn’t I just let go of some rude remarks that other people merely shrug off and forget? Why do I get hurt with words and behavior that other people aren’t even sensitive about?

I guess I just have this idea of fairness. Being the type who’d think things over before saying a word, I expected everyone else to be like that. Being the kind of person who tries to avoid hurting people because I easily get hurt, I wanted to believe everyone else keeps that in mind.

But the truth I must accept is that people are not the same. Not everyone thinks deeply before they speak. Not everyone is as sensitive as I am to get hurt with the things I get easily upset about.

“Don’t do to others what you don’t want others to do unto you.” That used to be the golden rule.

But I think we should do more than that. At least, based on my experience.

It’s no longer enough for me to expect others to do what is normal for me to do. I must keep an open mind about the extent of conduct other people could adhere to.

The golden rule says:

“If I were that person, I wouldn’t have done that.”

“If it were me, I wouldn’t have said that.”

Here is the deal, however. You are not that person. And I am not you.

The golden rule isn’t enough for us to talk about fairness. It’s not enough to make our relationship work. At least, in this perspective.

Whether we’re talking about strangers or about people close to us, it isn’t enough to expect from them what we expect from ourselves.

This does not mean that we can’t have an objective definition of what is right and wrong. It is very dangerous to assume truth is relative.

But we must apply this objective truth through the lens of our different personalities and situations in life. We must not assume that everyone is already as holy as Mother Teresa or St. Francis of Assisi. We should not think that everyone who fails to meet their standards aren’t striving for holiness and goodness in life.

If we should ever apply the golden rule, let us apply it in this way.

Don’t judge others by the limited standards applicable only to your unique life. Widen your perspective. See that everyone is struggling and failing, and persisting to get up again and again.

Of course all that is more easily said than done. But we can begin there. I can begin there.

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"Mend My Broken Heart"

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Mend My Broken Heart

“No matter how much we want to, there is no magic formula in healing a broken heart. There is no time-frame also. What we need is to know that our suffering is not meaningless, that the love we have given was never wasted, and that somewhere beyond all our pain, there is hope, hope that could help us endure the hurt we’re going through.”