Recently, I found this slip of paper that my grandma had from when she was a little girl. It is just a piece of paper the size of a business card and it lists “Rules to live by.” I kept this when I found it for a couple of reasons. First, the rules are actually pretty great, and it got me thinking about rules to live by.
There are three rules on the paper itself. These rules are:
"You can’t lead a horse to water, but if you can get him to float on his back, then you’ve got something."
"People will accept your idea much more readily if you tell them Ben Franklin said it first."
"Never go to a doctor whose office plants have died."
These rules actually made me laugh when I first read them because they are funny and random, but still funny. This got me thinking, however, what are the real rules to live by? We are told certain things continuously as we go through life. We are, if not always, told to be happy and live life to the fullest. Would that be considered one of the rules to live by? Probably, but that could be so broad, and frankly, I’m bored of hearing that because it seems to be what most everyone is worried about.
I searched "what rules to live by" to see what would pop up, and the results weren’t surprising. Many of the results contained how to be happy or how to live a positive life. There are some things that could be wrong with this.
Life doesn’t accommodate when one wants to be happy or is trying to convince themselves to be positive. There are certain days that curve balls get thrown your way and there seems to be no correct way to react to it. When something bad happens usually we are told to smile and get through it. Is that another rule to live by? Realistically, that is not the easiest thing to. Not everything can be fixed with plastering a smile on your face and pretending it isn’t happening. From time to time we have to face the issue at hand, regardless of if we want to or not.
Within more of the searching I did, I went and looked at the images to see the different types of things that would be there. It was the same content, but the image design had large fonts in bold and all of these different types of underlying meaning between each of them. Nothing was special and made them any different. Life isn’t that simple that you can say three things and then continue to carry on with everyday things. That would be ideal, but that isn’t how it works.
What are the actual rules to live by? Are they something the world tells us to do or are they something we come up with on our own? Regardless of what they are, why not make them up for yourself and follow them as best as you can. Or don't make any rules and wing it, no one is stopping you.
