A New Golden Rule

Have you ever said something like "All people need to be treated well", and then said something harsh to yourself? Why would we exclude ourselves from the list of "All people"? What is this desire to somehow deem ourselves as less valuable than others?

I think there might be some societal issues at play here. Sometimes we hear, "Don't be arrogant or self centered", or "You should not think of yourself".

I think that many of society's woes come from people not fully valuing themselves. When we don't value ourselves, we are not going to value others. Because, again if I'm not including myself in the "All people need to be treated well" category, I'm also not going to believe that other people belong in it. This may seem kind of twisted, but I think it works.

How many terrible man-made events in history have occurred that stemmed from someone seeing someone else as less than human? Unfortunately, too many too count. Chances are the person doing the harm did not have a good image of themselves. Right now, I'm thinking of (and I bet you are too) several notable figures of human history that caused horrible atrocities. Later, in our history books we read the biography of these people, and find out that they were absolutely miserable people who hated themselves.

This is where the Golden Rule comes into play.

The Golden Rule states that we should treat others like we would wish to be treated.

I think we should extend this to ourselves. How about this: "We should treat ourselves and others as well as we wish others to treat us".

Can you imagine a world where everyone treated themselves with dignity and kindness? Can you imagine a world where everyone talked to themselves with compassion?

 I don't know. I could be wrong. I could be way off course. I could be in denial. I could have no idea what I'm talking about. All of this (and more) is possible. Maybe I need to extend the New Golden Rule to myself:)

 However...what if I'm right about this?

What if the next time we make a mistake and want to say something negative about ourselves, that we say sometimes positive and affirming instead? I bet that the next time that someone else makes a mistake that we will be a little kinder to them. If we understand our own faults and are kind to ourselves, chances are we will extend that amazing connector called empathy to others.

Empathy is indeed the way out of this. But, empathy can only really take effect when we are good to ourselves. Empathy will very quickly become codependency if we think that others deserve good and we don't.

I invite you to try extending the Golden Rule to yourself too. I can't wait to see if it indeed makes your world a better place. I'm curious...

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