Silly Old Bear

I want to share with you three simple rules that can have a dramatically positive impact on the life of anyone who will truly model his or her life after these principles.

1. BE NICE

The way you treat other people is important. We all know that this is true when we turn it around: The way YOU treat ME is really important! I mean, you had better treat me right; because if you don’t, you’re just a jerk!

So, what does that make me when I don’t treat other people right? Oh, I guess that makes me a jerk!

Other people have just as much right to be treated right as I do. That’s what the Golden Rule is all about: “Do unto others as you would have them do unto you.” When you put that in plain, everyday English, it sounds something like this: “Treat other people the way you want to be treated.”

If you want to be treated with respect, then treat other people with respect.

If you want people to be understanding and cut you some slack when you’re having a bad day and nothing is going right, then you be understanding and cut other people some slack when they are having a bad day and nothing is going right for them.

If you want your friends to get all excited for you when something good happens to you, then you get all excited when something good happens to them.

If you want people to be nice to you, then you be nice to other people.

One of my favorite books gives lots of good advice on how to live a happy life. Here’s what it says about getting along with other people (paraphrased):

– Don’t be selfish.

– Don’t be conceited.

– Think of other people as being better than you.

– Show a genuine interest in other people.

I’m a people-watcher. I like to see what I can learn from studying other people’s lives. There are some people in this world who are just plain mean. They seem to take great pleasure in hurting other people or disrupting their lives. We all know someone like that. Do you know what I have discovered about mean people? They are usually miserable. They don’t seem to enjoy life very much.

There are other people who just seem to have a knack for being nice. Kindness and gentleness and genuine concern for other people seems to drip from their pores. Do you know what I have discovered about nice people? They tend to enjoy life a whole lot more than mean people. Being nice to other people is a good habit to develop, and will make your life more enjoyable.

But I believe it actually goes much deeper than that. Not only will being nice to other people make your own life more enjoyable. I am convinced that the way you treat other people will have a lot to do with how far you go in life, with how successful you are in your chosen career, with how happy you are in your family. Why?

All throughout your life, and in every area of your life, you are going to be surrounded by people. The way you treat other people will have a great influence on how other people treat you. If you are generally mean and ugly to other people, most people will be mean and ugly to you, and will not want to be in your presence. But if you generally treat other people with kindness, then other people are going to be nice to you, and will enjoy “having you around”. The result? You will be happier, life will be a lot more fun, and more doors of opportunity will open up for you. All because you developed the habit of being nice.

Dr. Seuss said it like this in his story entitled “The Lorax”:

“Unless someone like you cares a whole awful lot,
nothing is going to get better. It’s not.”

So, Rule #1 is “Be nice”. Care a whole awful lot about other people. And life will be better. It will.

Related Posts:

1. Make Your Life Count When you are dead and gone, what will your life have counted for? Will the world be a better place because you were here? One of my biggest fears in life is mediocrity – just sort of drifting through life without ever really accomplishing anything worthwhile. I don’t want to...

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