The Golden Rule - 2 ways to understand it

Do unto others as you would have them do unto you. There are a variety of reasons why this is good advice. They key - is how we understand what exactly this means.

Brooke Gibbs, an anti-bullying educator, has a great video on this. 

In it - he talks about how treating others nicely initiates our innate feelings of reciprocity.  When people are nice - it makes us want to be nice back. Even if we are mad - it's REALLY hard to resist our instincts to mimic the behavior of others - in this case - niceness.

When I teach the golden rule, I teach it in terms of both reciprocity and as enlightened self interest.

You are not only modelling the behavior you want to see. You are also encouraging good people to want to be around you.

Even if mean people don't reciprocate - good people notice that you were not a jerk back to someone being a jerk to you. And this encourages the good people of the world - to want to help and support you - which is really helpful as life is often quite difficult and stressful and having good people on your side - makes it so much easier.

So yes - the golden rule - because enlightened self interest encourages us to manipulate people's sense of reciprocity. And yes - that sounds like a horrible reason to be good. The other reason? Being good - feels good. Triple plus good.

To learn more about how I think of and use the golden rule - get my book The Humanist Approach to Happiness - to find out what I think the true holy trinity really is. https://humanistlearning.com/the-humanist-approach-to-happiness-book/

On the subject of service to others

A good friend of mine sometimes posts biblical quotes to discuss motivation and morality. I find these fascinating because of the universality of the problem.

One time she didn’t quote the bible, she simply wrote something about the importance of not just service to others, but of selfless service.

Her post brought up the question of selfish service vs. selfless service.

I am a big fan of enlightened self interest. I do think doing good for others helps ourselves. But I also think there is value in acts of selfless service.

Selfless service is rare and always has been. Jesus’ story stands out because of his example of selfless service. Uncle Tom is a similar character. He’s not thinking of himself. He’s just giving himself over to the experience and helping without expectation of helping himself.

We are moved by these stories, but … almost no one actually lives up to the ideal. The most most of us can accomplish is selfish service. We do it to make ourselves feel better or to notch up points on our internal scoreboard.

So – is selfish service ok? 

There is nothing wrong with getting something out of service, but … you shouldn’t do harm while engaging in service either

The Humanist Service Corps wrote article about the principles they employ when engaging in service for just this reason. They don’t want to accidentally cause harm while trying to do good. https://appliedsentience.com/2016/01/22/secular-is-insufficient-how-hsc-differs-from-the-peace-corps/

Sometimes I think that maybe selfish service is part of the learning to be of service. Maybe people need to start with selfish service in order to learn selfless service?  I know that has been part of my journey. I’m curious about your own relationship with the concept of service to others and how you balance your selfish needs against the need to serve selflessly.

Genuine Interest vs. Selfish Interest vs. Enlightened Self Interest

Do you genuinely care about other people? Or only when they can do something for you?

This topic came up the other day while I was considering my own difficulties in selling my services.  I created my company because I really want to make a difference. I feel like I have a moral obligation to share my knowledge with others because, if you know how to stop bullying, it’s immoral not to share that knowledge with others.

The problem is that it costs money to distribute this knowledge AND, people don’t value what they get for free. I gave away over 13,000 copies of my book. I got zero reviews written from that give away, which likely means, thousands of people downloaded my book with great intentions, but were too busy with life and never got around to reading it and so haven’t benefited from it and my attempt at massive knowledge distribution failed miserably, despite impressive give away numbers.

Asking people to pay for knowledge, on the other hand, makes them value it more and actually learn what you have to teach. Almost all the reviews of my book are from people who actually bought it and so were invested in learning from what I have to teach. The downside is that I reach fewer people that way, but the people I do reach actually take the time to learn. Altruistic intentions aside, what good is mass distribution if the knowledge goes unused and unlearned?

The other reason to charge for my books and programs is that I need the money. I do have bills to pay and even free distribution on the internet costs money (hosting, advertising to let people know your resource exists, etc), not to mention the time required to get this knowledge created, formatted and distributed precludes me from having a regular day job. So I have selfish reasons for wanting to distribute my knowledge in addition to the genuine reasons I have for wanting to distribute it.

The problem is how to balance my selfish reasons (I need the money) with my genuine interest (I want to help as many people as possible).  The solution is obviously enlightened self-interest.   The problem is how to make sure I stay genuinely interested in the people I want to help and prevent myself from drifting into selfishness.  This problem is especially acute when I’m trying to make a sale to a company interested in my workplace bullying programs that is worth a lot of money and that could potentially make a huge difference in my family’s finances.

It’s not easy to do. But paradoxically, I do find that the more I am able to remind myself that I’m offering my programs, not to make money (though that is nice), but to truly help other people, the more successful I am at getting the sale.

Remembering that other people are truly human too? Priceless.