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"Be Excellent To Each Other!"
Hi everyone,
Some time back, I spent time sitting in on an Equality Awareness course. It was a course I have both run and attended many times over in the last 30 years and I couldn't help thinking, "I know all this stuff. What is there left to learn?"
I got my answer the night before I went.
It happened on a UK reality TV show, "Celebrity Big Brother", in which an Indian actress was mercilessly bullied and abused by a young English woman. The tirade I watched was full of hate, anger, and disrespect.
It got me thinking.
How come, after 30 years of equality legislation and equality training, we still haven't changed attitudes enough to treat each other with respect and dignity. What's going wrong?
And that's when I started thinking about the Golden Rule.
The Golden Rule is the principle that you should treat others the way you want to be treated yourself. It's also known as the principle of reciprocity.
That stalwart for a good quote, Aristotle, put it this way hundreds of years ago: "We should bear ourselves towards others as we would desire they should bear themselves towards us." In other words, even when people are behaving towards us in a way that we dislike, we should refrain from doing the same back to them. Instead we should treat them the way we would prefer them to treat us.
The reason why the Golden Rule is so important and works is because it is universal. It is not particular to one age, one culture, or one creed. In fact, it appears in the key texts of every one of the world's major religions.
Take a look at the following and see how they all strike the same note.
Buddhism: Hurt not others in ways that you yourself would find hurtful." Udana-Varga 5:18
Christianity: "Therefore all things whatsoever ye would that men should do to you, do ye even so to them: for this is the law and the prophets." Matthew 7:12
Confucianism: "Tse-kung asked, 'Is there one word that can serve as a principle of conduct for life?' Confucius replied, 'It is the word 'shu', reciprocity. Do not impose on others what you yourself do not desire.'" Doctrine of the Mean 13.3
Islam: "None of you truly believes until he wishes for his brother what he wishes for himself." Number 13 of Imam "Al-Nawawi's Forty Hadiths."
Hinduism: This is the sum of duty: do not do to others what would cause pain if done to you. Mahabharata 5:1517
Jainism: "A man should wander about treating all creatures as he himself would be treated. "Sutrakritanga 1.11.33
Judaism: "What is hateful to you, do not to your fellow man. This is the law: all the rest is commentary." Talmud, Shabbat 31a.
Sikhism: "No one is my enemy, none a stranger and everyone is my friend." Guru Arjan Dev : AG 1299
Taoism: "Regard your neighbor's gain as your own gain, and your neighbor's loss as your own loss." T'ai Shang Kan Ying P'ien
As I sat appalled at the bullying on my TV, I began to wonder how I would have conducted my own Equality training course using the Golden Rule.
And this is what I would have told my trainees.
1. learn to be kind. Even when a relationship isn't working, and you feel you have reason to dislike someone, still learn to be kind.
2. don't wait for others to treat you right; take the first step yourself. After all, behaviour breeds behaviour. What you get is what you give.
3. apply the Golden Rule to everyone you meet, especially to those who are at some disadvantage to you, maybe because they are a guest in your land or a visitor to your place of work.
4. always keep a sense of right and wrong in your behaviour towards others.
5. be more aware of what you feel towards others and if it is in any way negative, find out why and have the mental skill and courage to change it.
6. instead of feeling fear and defensiveness towards others because you think they're a threat, make your mind up to feel love and openness and vulnerability because they are a fellow human being. (And for anyone who thinks that's mushy, it ain't, it's very tough!)
7. apply the Golden Rule not just to those groups protected by equality legislation, such as the old and those from ethnic backgrounds, but also to those of a different disposition, a different history, a different personality.
If people were to follow these skills of the Golden Rule, they wouldn't need equality training. They would only need to learn the lessons of their own lives. As Dee Hock advised, "Make a list of all the things done to you that you abhorred. Don't do them to others, ever. Make another list of all the things done to you that you loved. Do them to others always."
Or, as Bill and Ted in the movie "Bill and Ted's Excellent Adventure" put it, "Be excellent to each other!"
Eric