Thursday, June 26th, 2008

A post on life rules and EQ

Everyone has their own sets of rules on how they should live, behave and interact with the society. In a way, you can call these “principles” but for the sake of this post, I define “life rules” as something that help guide my actions and steer them towards common sense, and these rules are inherently logical - they also closely relate to social aspects and EQ. On the other hand, “principles” to me is a set of beliefs that may be difficult to explain and defend, and does not necessitate actions, e.g. “I will not allow myself to get a lift from a lady”.

So here goes some of the 3 most important life rules from my personal rulebook that I would thus like to share with you; These are rules that aren’t straightforward like “Thou shall not steal” (so important and obvious I need not share), and are commonly violated by many in their everyday life. That’s not to say I have not violated them any bit, but for sure I have not for the past few years and indefinitely the future.

Rule No. 1: Never capitalize on what others cannot choose
“That’s quite below the belt”. A certain friend J remarked to me on a dining table when I accidentally joked about another friend’s volume. These words have stayed with me for 4 years now, and it is probably the first and only time I have ever degraded anyone because of their sheer size. Regrettably, this is one of the most commonly committed mistakes people always do. They assume their friends often would not mind such jokes, and live their joy at others’ expenses. Such insensitivity, imho, has no place in this world because many of them do not choose how they look like.

A little off topic: My secondary 3 English teacher’s words still ring in my head too. “If they say you are fat, tell them you can run and slim down. but tell them they are ugly, and they need total reconstruction”.

Rule No. 2: Always give others the benefit of a doubt (and imagine all possibilities)
It is much easier to live knowing others are not malicious, and to imagine the different positive excuses that comes with a negative behavior from someone else. For e.g., Alice told you Jack told a crowd in a bar you are a selfish worker who always turns down request to help him. Immediately, anger steamed through your mind. You can, however, speculate the possibility that Jack was drunk and sprouted something he did not meant, or Jack meant to say you are too busy to help him in your work. Alice may even have exaggerated his words! There is always a chance the latter reasons are genuine - in the case they are and you choose the easier path of believing in Jack’s maliciousness, you effectively destroyed a relationship unnecessarily.

I am not preaching you to become a saint or be overly naive, but my point here is people often misinterpret words and behaviors. Giving the other party a benefit of a doubt also meant giving the relationship 1 more chance. When in doubt, do not just speculate negativity - confront him/her to clear the air.

Rule No. 3: Prioritize events and work that others have an important stake
In SMU where I received my degree education, school team projects come in waves. These projects are normally the determinant for the final grade of that module. Some teammates that I have worked with unfortunately led extremely interesting lives - full of co-cirriculum activities and working part time to support their travel trip in the summer for e.g. Needless to say, most of them took advantage of the fact it is a group project and therefore the project is taken care of by the group who of course need to do well anyway for their grades. . They thus traded away their credibility and reputation in exchange for more involvements elsewhere. Such exploitations are much detested and despised.

Reputation and Credibility are for life. Trust me, they come back to haunt you.

That’s all folks. You may choose to agree or disagree with these rules - leave me a comment on your views!