12 Rules for life

Seeing as I’m always up for a moment of self-reflection and for having a bit of fun, I decided to create my own set of ‘rules’. And I’ll begin with just one rule. Who knows how many I’ll land up with or how often I’ll be thinking about this again. Personally, I don’t love rules but it has been a fun exercise to think about…

So here’s my first ‘rule’ for life:

Be Kind… but only as long as it doesn’t cause you to get killed

I thought of this rule after a road trip with my kids who are experts at finding each other’s triggers and digging into them. Especially when they find themselves bored and squashed together in a car…

Hence the origin of the rule “Be kind”

Being kind to others makes you feel good. It helps to have an impact and build relationships. And you can be kind even if you’re angry or upset with someone (something I try to explain to the kids).

On said road trip, I listened to Malcolm Gladwell’s podcast (Revisionist History – highly recommended) about pulling the goalie.

In the podcast, Malcolm Gladwell posits that the level of kindness we exhibit stems from our need to be liked (agreeable). This causes us to take less than rational decisions in times when our survival depends on it and therefore can get us killed…

For example, opening the door to a psycho serial killer who asks for help. Of course we don’t know he’s a psycho serial killer so we do the kind thing. And that can get us killed.

Hence I came up with the exception to my rule

My insight from doing this exercise is that I’m bound to create rules that come hand in hand with an exception. Because I don’t believe any rule can cover all situations and circumstances. I’m not a black & white person. I live in the grey… and every rule is meant to be broken.

If you had to create one rule… not the only rule, not without exception but one rule that you seem to live by… what would it be?

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Daphna Horowitz

Talented people becoming extraordinary leaders so that they can meaningfully impact their world