You may be be looking at this & thinking – but wait, what the…? The phrase aptly ends: “as you would have them do unto you.” It’s the friggin’ Golden Rule. Why’d we change it at all?
Isn’t it right to want to treat others how we’d want to be treated, ourselves? And if that happens, don’t we all get treated well?! Absolutely! And I’m not advocating for a complete change. Here’s what I’m hoping to point out:
In this phrase, how it was originally intended, the call to action is for us to think about how WE would want to be treated BACK, as the main motivating factor of treating others well. I think, especially in today’s environment, it doesn’t place enough of the emphasis on how we can actually (& genuinely) help OTHERS.
You look arnd social media: what gets the most love right now? Self-love posts. Self-care posts. Doing what you need to do for you, bc damn, things are hard right now. Yoga, meditation, massage – we’re seeing it all. As pointed out in the last post, we’re also seeing a lot of individual focus on disorder symptoms…what YOU have…the signs YOU can look out for.
I don’t think there is anything wrong w this. So many are struggling right now. So many do need help. We’re always told to put our own oxygen masks on first.
But think abt the world we’re in right now. We spend so much time w our noses in our own phones. Our kids w their noses in their iPads watching a YouTuber’s video game skills. So much of what’s being pushed TO us, is about US, & us alone. It plays on what we crave, individually, & draws us in.
So, what I am advocating for, is that we take what we learn from these individual self-care, self-love, individually entertaining msgs, & shift our motivating factors to being: taking what WE learn, & using this info to help heal OTHERS…bc if it’s good for us, it’ll be good for them. Much like Scott shared in his Hero post, yesterday.
Let’s shift the focus of being good to others away from it being abt how we’ll get treated back, & more towards what’s the right thing to simply do FOR OTHERS – treating them, like we are now treating ourselves, better. We ALL get better that way.