"Do we really need rules? I hate rules. I don’t like them and I don’t want to follow them." Someone said this to me just last week with a lot of determination. The thought has stayed with me and I have been contemplating the answer. In order for me to answer this properly, we perhaps need to dig into what rules are. Rules are as per dictionary definition: a prescribed guide for conduct or action. When you are invited to play a new game, the very first question is: so what are the rules of this game? Otherwise, I doubt that you could properly and efficiently play the game.
Universe has a set of rules as well. The rule of electricity. I am going to buzz you if you stick your finger in the socket no matter who you are. If you jump from CN tower you are going to fall down and not fall up. If you are heavy you will sink in the water. And so on… you get the picture. The rules are so that your life would actually make sense and you will not be baffled in what you need to do next. Meaning tomorrow morning the building or the tree you saw the night before will be left where they were and not just move to a different location few blocks down. All inanimate objects must follow the rule of being “inanimate”. Otherwise you would sleep in your condo on Finch and Yonge and wake up on Steeles and Kipling and would be flustered with the whole idea of how am I supposed to live when there are no rules.
Or simpler yet, your toaster one day decides to be a fridge and vice versa due to the fact that they have no rules in what they will want to act as the next day.
Rules are to bring some consistency and sense of order and understanding to our lives. The rule of nature is that the cat will catch mouse. This has been so for many years. We have not yet seen a mouse catch a cat. In looking into nature and learning from the evidence of nature, as a collective who wants to live in certain amount of peace and harmony, we have decided to have local rules depending on the area we are living in. Different countries and sometimes even different cities or provinces, have different rules.
Then we have a set of implied and understood through common sense rules, even though due to lack of sense we might have created laws around it. One of the rules being, do not go to someone else’s house and pick up items and leave. We call this theft and we are completely not happy with it. If we do it and are caught we are punished. I am almost certain at this point there is not one of you out there that says, “Oh I am completely ok with no rules. Anyone can do anything to me and I can do anything to anyone.” Reason being is that, this kind of living is uncertain, there is no pattern and you have to fend and protect yourself on a constant basis which makes living next to impossible. It goes against every grain of your rule oriented creation and universe.
So the next time you feel like not following an applied or implied rule, think twice before discarding rules and saying that they are of no use. Remember, rules are the reason you are still here in one piece and your nose is not having a vacation in Bahama while the rest of you is in Siberia. Sometimes rules, rule!
Be the Light!
EL
