Sermons of David Leonard
SOME SIMPLE RULES FOR LIVING
Rev. David Leonard
Several months ago, while shopping in a Barnes and Noble bookstore, I came across a small book with a title similar to this sermon's, and I thought it might make a good topic for a Sunday morning. I thumbed through the pages, and a few of the guidelines or rules the author suggested seemed to me to be right on the mark, and I said to myself that this would be a good book to buy someday. When I returned to the store a few months later, I could not find it, so the first "simple rule" I offer here has to be some variation of carpe diem! Seize the day, seize the moment; the exact opportunity you have right now may never come again. When you see a book you want to buy, buy it.
There are a few cautions to add to any of these rules, so it may not be quite accurate to speak of them as "simple," but to begin with, I want to take this first rule ("seize the moment") and talk a little about how we actually usually make decisions and why this might be good advice. Our tendency is, as rational people, to think of decision-making as a kind of balance sheet between positive and negative aspects and consequences of our choices. We make lists in one column of all the benefits, and in the other column of all the drawbacks. Then (so we believe) we make a rational choice based on the comparative weight of the data.
More often than not, this is just the reverse of what actually is going on. We make our decisions based on what we want, and then we attempt to justify them by making lists or giving a rationale. You see this in politics all the time: policies are announced that reflect what those is power want to do, and then the case is presented as to why they are the appropriate policies. The rationale does not always match the intention. Our government's foreign policies, for example, may be based on economic interests and profits for mega-corporations, but the presenting rationale focuses on human rights, justice, democracy, defense-whatever sounds good.
Well, we often do the very same thing in our day-to-day decisions. If there's something we want or we want to do, we think of a whole bunch of reasons why it's the best option, when in fact it's because we want it, and there's no accounting for tastes. In saying, "seize the moment," therefore, I am suggesting only that we acknowledge our wants and desires, and if we are going to end up acting on them anyway, why fool around with justification, rationale and argument? If getting or doing something we really want does not conflict with our other values and desires, go for it! Why wait?
A second rule is: don't jump to conclusions. If you don't know, you don't know: do not imagine or construct the supposed facts, or others' meanings and intentions, when in fact you are ignorant of them. This is a tough rule to follow, because jumping to conclusions can be so much fun! It satisfies our emotional needs. We must get something out of it, or we wouldn't do it. Yet, how much miscommunication, misunderstanding and turmoil of relationships comes from the way we make assumptions about each other without being open to alternate interpretations?
I have been both the perpetrator and the victim of the violation of this rule. I have made assumptions about what people meant in saying something or other, and then I became irritated or angry-as a response to my own assumptions!-and trouble resulted. Not everyone thinks, perceives or processes the same way as we do, and what we so easily assume to be the meaning or intention, if we were to say a certain thing or do a certain action, may not be the same meaning or intention for someone else.
I remember very clearly a discussion about women who hitchhiked. We went around the group expressing our considerations and concerns about safety, and so on, and I said that I didn't think women should hitchhike at all. Well, how could I be so sexist? What was with my anti-feminist views? Why should there be this double standard, blah, blah blah? But my thought process was quite logical, I believed. The subject was women hitchhiking. I expressed my opinion. I said nothing whatsoever about men hitchhiking. That wasn't even the topic. Of course, I also believe that men should not hitchhike, but that was not under discussion at the moment. People assumed that I believed it was OK for men to hitchhike, but not women, just because I said nothing about men. I thought I was sticking to the topic and offering an opinion about it: people heard me imply something else. I know that that was an illogical a! ssumption on their part, but I have since recognized that people do not always (nor even often!) think logically, and now I take more care.
Obviously, when we know people fairly well, we are better able to read them, but when we don't really know what their meanings and intentions are, when we haven't established an "interpersonal culture" with them, we need to inquire further, not to make assumptions based on our own thinking and experience. How many times, when miscommunication is finally straightened out, have you said, or heard others say, "Oh, I thought you meant something else"?
I am also convinced that we have no obligation to form opinions and judgments about everything. Jumping to conclusions and forming opinions are becoming substitutes for education and careful investigation. Every day on the internet there is some poll about what somebody should do or about what will happen. Often these are pure guesswork with no fact-finding or thought required. In other words, nobody knows nor has any basis for knowing, but we're still supposed to have an opinion about it. We are constantly encouraged to jump to conclusions in this way.
Rule number three: do not take anything personally. Actually, a good part of the miscommunication we experience and the conclusions we jump to are a result of taking things personally. They dovetail into each other. The most common aspect of living in which we tend to ignore this advice is perhaps all those occasions in which people express criticism of us, disagree with us or are angry and irritated in relation to us. We almost automatically feel that it's something about us as persons that prompts their comments and behaviors. And as soon as we engage our emotions in response, it does become personal with us.
When those good people got on me about my hitchhiking opinions (well, I shouldn't say "good"-that's pretty judgmental), they may well have been guilty of jumping to conclusions, but I may have been guilty of taking their reactions personally. What kind of person did they think I was? Well, they didn't know what kind of person I was, so whatever they may have said, even if it seemed to be personal criticism, in fact was not. What they implied about me told me more about them and where they were coming from, than it told them anything meaningful about me. But I do recall feeling annoyed at the whole thing, and that at least borders on taking it personally, so I'm not entirely innocent.
And sometimes people seem to use their own taking things personally as a kind of weapon or tool for manipulating others. It passes under the guise of sensitivity. "I've never been so hurt and offended in my life." How do you feel, when someone says that, and you had no such harmful intention in your heart? Being hurt by innocent remarks may be innocent in itself, but it is also a jumping to conclusions and can result in trouble. See rule number two.
People respond to us, and we to them, out of individual personality and experience. Your boss may berate you in front of your co-workers. Unless you know that it is justified, all you can read out of it is that your boss may be a nasty person. Odds are your boss berates everyone in front of their co-workers, and if so, it is clearly not personal: it's just one of your boss's character defects! The hard part is to let it go as a personal thing, but to respond in such a way as addresses the non-personal aspects of the criticism or complaint. If we don't let our emotions get hooked in kind, it's a bit easier to deal with it.
This leads to another, and one of my all-time favorites: there's no accounting for tastes. There is little reason whatsoever to get upset with someone else's preferences and tastes nor to feel that we need to explain and justify our own. Of course, preferences and tastes can be harmful or destructive, and that's a different matter, but for the most part we are who we are, and others are who they are, and it's all an expression of human diversity and difference.
Mostly though, we argue about preferences. And what's in back of that, I think, is that few of us like to feel as though we are alone. We want the implicit support and understanding of those whose tastes are similar to our own. If we don't find it, we try to create it. Taste and preference are areas in which opinions are valid, but even then there's no argument with the fact that someone has a certain taste or preference, and while we may explain why we feel as we do about whatever it is, there is no accounting for it in the way of convincing proof or evidence. The best we can hope for is to encourage people to give some experience or other a try-so that they can be sure it is or is not their preference.
Finally, we come to rule number five: this rule, along with the other four, needs to be taken with a grain of salt. That's the rule! Thus some folks might want to call them guidelines, not rules. They are not carved in granite (though we may take them for granite!) and they need to be interpreted and applied with common sense.
This is a variation of how the ancient Greeks should have put it: moderation in many things. No simple rule for living can be interpreted absolutely rigidly and literally, without thinking. Nor are they totally irrelevant due to idiosyncratic variation. They are somewhat exaggerated expressions of an essentially moderate point of view.
I have no doubt that you will be able to think of other rules or guidelines, some more general and some more specific. For instance, do not make others' decisions for them, or don't lend money to friends, because you may lose both. (Just give them the money!) But in total, I would say that the heart of all such rules comes down to love life, don't take yourself too seriously, and maintain a sense of humor. If we can do that, then whatever difficulties, miscommunications or differences we encounter will eventually take a back seat to the spirit and joy with which we live.