The Golden Rule

I absolutely adore this time of year. There is something special to me about the light, the chill in the evening air, the smell of fires, the changing colours in nature. I sat the other day looking at a view of our beautiful countryside and musing over how very lucky I was to be here and how this was the most special time of year.

 HWMBO disagreed, in his opinion nothing beats summer. It seemed so strange that he couldn’t see that Autumn was clearly the most special time. This led me down the path of pondering other peoples needs and priorities and how different we all are. I found some interesting reading about respecting differences which in turn naturally turned to morals and values and “The Golden Rule".

The “Golden Rule” could be seen as the highest rule of life, and plays an important part of most religions. It is expressed in slightly different ways, but the general wording: "Do unto others as you would have them do unto you" seems to sum it up.

Jesus Christ in the Sermon on the Mount: "Therefore all things whatsoever ye would that men should do to you, do ye even so to them."

Judaism: "Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself."

Islam: "No one of you is a believer until he loves for his brother what he loves for himself."

Confucianism: "What you do not want done to yourself, do not do to others."

Buddhism: "Hurt not others with that which pains yourself."

Hinduism: "Good people proceed while considering that what is best for others is best for themselves."

Humanists: "Every person has dignity and worth, and, therefore, should command the respect of every other person."

But my particular favourite is the Indian saying: "Don't judge others until you have walked in their moccasins."

I agree that becoming moral requires enough emotional development to feel guilty when we do wrong, enough social development to accept our responsibility for behaving in agreed upon ways towards our group, and enough cognitive development to be able to place ourselves in another person's shoes.

So I slipped on HWMBO's moccasins to see if the view feels any different …No I thought not…still, if just once a day I can consider why someone does or thinks something that may not fit my own subjective standards or more importantly how what I am doing may affect someone else there will be a benefit.