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| Photo courtesy Ryan McGuire |
“One should respect public opinion insofar as is necessary
to avoid starvation and keep out of prison, but anything that goes beyond this
is voluntary submission to an unnecessary tyranny.”
—Bertrand Russell
I’ve been a good girl all my life. I (mostly) obeyed my
parents, got good grades, did my best to fit in and please others. As an adult,
I generally follow the rules, even if no one is watching. And while I think it
is a good idea to be a law-abiding citizen, rules—especially unwritten,
unspoken ones—can be taken too seriously. They can lock us into behaviors and
beliefs that aren’t true, don’t serve us, and don’t reflect our deepest values.
Rules can become tyrants. Here’s an example: Last week, I
returned a DVD to the library without watching it, thus breaking my
unspoken rule: once you check something out, you must read/watch it.
When I dropped the DVD into the return slot, I felt a sense of relief and
freedom all out of proportion to the act. This made me wonder, what other
unspoken rules complicate my life and keep me from the happiness I want?
I know I can be too rigid. What am I afraid of? That once
freed from my rules I’ll run wild? Maybe. “Without rules, we may feel more
vulnerable as if the looseness and lack of structure will lead us toward
defeat,” wrote Leslie Levine in Ice Cream for Breakfast. “But rules can
also be constricting, keeping us from stretching or even soaring every once in
a while. If we can improvise—make up the rules as we go—it becomes easier to
reach a middle ground, a place where rules help us grow and thrive.”
In her book Life Is a Verb, Patti Digh tells a funny
story about the time she tried to order toast and a side of avocado slices in
the middle of the afternoon at a restaurant and was told by the waiter that it
would break all the rules to serve her those things—it was past toast time, and
sides were only available with entrees. There are “toast rules”? she wondered.
She wrote, “It’s one thing to acknowledge the absurdity of
other people’s rules; it’s another thing altogether to recognize and own the
absurdity of the rules we’ve made up (helpful hint: They’re all made up, some
so ingrained that we can no longer see they are Toast Rules). So when a rule
pops to the surface, see it for the Toast Rule it is, made up to serve some
social norm that is itself made up—or to serve the convenience of a waiter,
where waiter stands for ‘person’ or ‘group.’”
Franklin Delano Roosevelt said, “Rules are not necessarily
sacred, principles are.” I think this is a useful distinction. I aspire to live
by principles like treat other people the way you want to be treated and be
kind. These reflect principles I value, that benefit me as well as others.
Never return a book or DVD to the library without reading or watching it? Not
so much.
Let’s examine our rules. Do they still work and have value?
Rules often start with: I can’t or I should. Think twice every time those words
start a sentence. We may be bumping up against a rule that no longer serves us.
Levine wrote: “Even our capacity for uncontrollable laughter
is somehow diminished by the rules that govern adulthood. Instead of giving
ourselves permission to be joyful and do the things that make us happy, we
arbitrarily create rules that prevent us from enjoying as much as we can. So
instead of lingering in the tub…, we bathe as fast as we can. Instead of
celebrating our own birthdays…, we minimize the day and let it pass almost
unnoticed. These made-up rules may give us some order in the short term but
ultimately shortchange what could be a more fulfilling and fun life.”
What rules do you live by? What rules do you want to break?
“If you obey all the rules, you miss all the fun.”
—Katherine
Hepburn
