If you’re looking to get back on track and regain your edge, here’s a straightforward list of rules of life that can help. These are basic rules to live by which will improve your life. Many will be natural to you but some may require you to reflect on your past and adjust for the future. Some are a reminder of what you were taught through Buddhist Precepts, Christian Commandments or Islamic Etiquette. These ten rules to live by for men provide a framework for continuous reflection and improvement.
The Rules of Life
1. Respect
Treat all people with dignity and respect, regardless of their background or beliefs.
There is a level of respect everyone deserves based on the notions of equality, individual liberty as well as the sanctity of life. You don’t need to adopt other’s beliefs or even accept them but you should be courteous and willing to listen and possibly learn about their background. The world would be a much better place if we tried to understand one another.
Remember, respect goes both ways.. You don’t need to respect someone who does you harm – you do need to respect yourself.
2. Honesty
Being truthful in your words and actions, fosters trust and integrity.
This isn’t about the innocuous lie you may tell someone to save their feelings. Being honest means speaking the truth, even though it may not be popular or may be considered contrary to established views. If you can’t be honest, not in your opinions, but with what you know to be true, then you doom yourself to a kind of hell. Depending on the significance of the lie (or omission), you will struggle with that decision for the rest of your life.
If you are consistently an honest person, you will become known by others as someone they can trust. You will be respected and will have no problems sleeping at night.
3. Responsibility
Accepting and owning up to your actions, thoughts, beliefs and their consequences are what makes you an autonomous person. Blaming others for your failures but taking sole credit for your success is an example of immaturity.
While there are forces that constantly act upon us both for the positive as well as negative, how you react to them is within your control. Take responsibility for things that don’t go well; own the problem. If something goes well, share the credit with others
4. Kindness and Compassion
You should always seek to understand others. Being kind and compassionate involves holding back judgement. You don’t know what people go through unless you walk in their shoes. If you can help others, do so. If you can’t, don’t lead someone on with false hope. For many of us in this world, we owe our affluence and lifestyle to where and when we were born. Remember this before passing judgement on the homeless person you see on the street or the recent immigrant to your country who doesn’t look, dress or talk like you.
Showing empathy and understanding towards others doesn’t mean you agree with them, it means you can look past differences and treat others as you would like to be treated. As the Golden Rule states: “Do unto others as you would have them do unto you”.
5. Fairness and Justice
It seems we have lost our sense of what is right and what is wrong. So standing up for what is right is important. Know what you stand for and be consistent in how you interpret the world. Don’t wade into an issue unless you fully understand it and are equipped to deal with it.
We all know to stand up against theft, assault, and harassment. There are broader rights we have fought wars for, such as liberty and freedom that are also worth defending. Unfortunately the world isn’t as black and white as we might think. And most issues or conflicts are much more complex than how they appear on the surface.
Barring taking a stand on every issue, the best thing you can do in life is to have a positive impact on what you can directly control. Be fair and consistent with the people you interact with daily. And reserve judgement.
6. Integrity
Many people hold a set of beliefs and values that they may or may not live by. These are values and beliefs they were raised with or were taught when they were younger. Often people give them little thought and only vaguely understand their significance.
For those who do understand their value, too often we compromise them for an opportunity for gain or advancement. We may value truth but then justify lying and deceit based on what we believe to be the greater good. Others may simply ignore the values they believe in because they are inconvenient and would prevent them from doing what they want. A man with integrity is a man who holds true to their values, understands what they stand for, acts accordingly, and doesn’t compromise..
7. Self-Discipline
Self discipline is about having a goal, and consistently working towards that goal. This requires focus and development of habits. It also means that you have control over your actions and impulses to achieve these long-term goals. Without self discipline you are subject to the whims of the situation. You will tend to do more of the easy things in life and less of those things that improve your life and provide a future.
Self discipline requires you to work through life’s challenges and focus on what is important. As Warren Buffet once said ““We do not have to be smarter than the rest, we have to be more disciplined than the rest.”
8. Gratitude
Life is so complex and random that to think all things great in your life are due to your hard work and good choices is naive at best and ignorant at worst. Even if you aren’t willing to believe chance, luck, or circumstance had something to do with your success, it still isn’t bad to express appreciation and to thank others who helped you along the way.
As part of the growing movement towards mindfulness, people make it a habit to regularly express gratitude. Although you can express thanks to God, many aren’t religious and give thanks to the universe or our planet. Just the act of regularly showing gratitude helps you reflect on what you have and how you got to where you are..
9. Learning and Growth
The person who stops learning stops growing. People are no longer restricted in how and when they learn. In the past you would go to school to a certain age and then you got a job. Additional learning and growth happened on the job, experiencing different things in life if you were adventurous, or by reading books.
Nowadays opportunities for learning are much greater with the influence of the internet. If you want to learn how to do something today, you can watch a YouTube video or take a Udemy course, for example. Information and knowledge is now a commodity. You can even experience what it is like to be somewhere without being there with the use of a VR headset. There is little reason not to learn and grow and every opportunity to do so.
10. Balance
If you focus too much time and energy on one thing, such as work, it is at the detriment of other things in life that are equally important, such as family, leisure and other interests. Life requires a balance – you can’t eat just one thing without eventually getting sick (and sick of it). Similarly you can’t do just one thing without also getting sick.
Striving for a healthy balance in life brings the most long term satisfaction. A balanced life brings better physical and mental health, improved productivity, an improvement in your relationships, and less stress,
Conclusion – Rules of Life
There is a saying, “if you don’t stand for something, you will fall for anything”. This means you can be more easily manipulated and coerced to do what others want. If you live a principled or rules based life you know what the game is and how to play. You are an independent thinker and the decisions you make in life are easier to make.
You can say “I live by my own rules of life” where most others simply float through life, willing to do what is the easiest and most profitable for themselves.
It isn’t easy to have rules to live by, especially when the world currently seems to be upside down, but by being principled, life becomes clearer and and less confusing.
You may also like Best Books for Guys for Navigating Life.
