We all have rules for living. We insist that others follow them as well. Mostly we’re not aware that we have rules about how people should behave because our rules make so much sense to us and seem so obviously true.
How do you know whether you have a rule? Whenever you hear yourself thinking or saying out loud “You shouldn’t do it that way. You should do it this way.” Or “If…then”. “If you really loved me, then you would have remembered my birthday.”
We generally have rules about how to be a good brother, sister, daughter, aunt, uncle, grandparent, parent, teacher, religious leader, politician, teen, child, husband, wife, guest, co-worker, etc. We also have rules about how to do everything correctly from running a business to being a loving person to spending money to eating food. For every possible action you can be sure that someone somewhere has a rule about how to do it right.
Here is one of my rules:
Don’t be lining up in the 15-item express line when you clearly know that you have 30 items even though you’re pretending that 7 cans of tuna are one item. I believe that that is inconsiderate behavior and my rule is that people shouldn’t be inconsiderate.
Now many of you might disagree about that being inconsiderate behavior. Or not care about people being inconsiderate. Or think that it’s petty.
But that’s the thing about our rules. They’re subjective. Meaning they are based on our experiences and our perspective of the world. Because we all have such diverse experiences and perspectives, we react to people and situations very differently.
We all have different rules. And that’s why our rules create tremendous chaos in our relationships. We judge others for their rules and for the things that bother them and affect them. We make them wrong instead of accepting that we are unique people with unique perspectives, feelings, needs and concerns.
In every relationship issue that I work with, whether it’s couples, parents, adult siblings or friendships, having different rules causes enormous conflicts between people. We expect – actually demand – that others live by our rules because they make so much sense and seem so obvious to us. Clients have said to me, “They’re not rules. They’re reality.”
It’s really important to be aware of your rules and to remember that they aren’t necessarily shared by everyone else. (Have you noticed how being aware seems to come up regularly in my newsletters and blogs?) Be aware as well when you make other people wrong because their rules are different than yours.
