Sweeten the Rules
I read a novel recently that was set in modern day Savannah, GA. The main character’s father was always telling her to “be sweet” when he said goodbye. While I’ve lived in Atlanta for over eight years now, having transplanted from Philadelphia, this southern phrase was something I had never heard before or maybe it just never made an impact before now. I believe it to be the equivalent of parents up North urging their children to “be good.”
Such cultural lingo illustrates that depending on where and how you grow up there is an intake of particular social norms or rules that influence the way you look at the world and behave in it. Be sweet, be good, be real, be cool can account for some of the differences I’ve observed across different cultures and regions. However, rules can also be thought of as beliefs, the beliefs we have about ourselves and the world around us. While these rules can serve us positively, they can also morph into self-limiting beliefs if we are not careful.
Early in life, we are forced to adopt other people’s rules like the first grade standard of “stand in a straight line, one behind the other.” We don’t get much say in the making of these rules, but one of underpublicized but very real benefits of adulthood is being able to make your own rules and toss out the ones that no longer serve you. It seems that many of us slide through life and forget that we can critically think about the rules we live by and change them.
People sometimes make the analogy of life as a game that we are all playing. Some say those with the most money at the end win, others claim that the greatest number of friends or the largest social impact is the measure of success. Clearly, the meaning of life and the measurement of one’s ultimate success in it are individual to each of us. The important question to ask yourself is -do your rules make it easy for you to be a winner or do they make your game of life more difficult to play?
Why not choose to follow the rules that tilt the board game in your favor? This will make it easier for you to feel like a winner in life everyday. You see if the idea is to win the game of life, and you are the one that gets to make up the rules for what winning in life means, then you hold all the cards. You have the power to make it happen. But this requires self-evaluation. Something that’s been both unavoidable and difficult for me. In childhood I was never a rule breaker. I rarely got in trouble and always did as I was told. But after a while I realized, without me pushing on the system and challenging things, things might never change. And things should change, shouldn’t they. Change is the essence of life. To deny it would be to be in denial of life.
Don’t get me wrong, I’m not advocating anarchy. We need rules. Society needs rules, roads need rules, and games need rules. Games are enjoyable for the very fact that they allow us to get into a groove in which the objectives are very clear and we can immerse ourselves in the full experience of following the rules in order to win. This is what flourishing is all about, being in the flow, be it while driving, working, or simply living. We can turn the mindless chatter in our brain down and tune into any activity that gives us a very focused objective. When we get immediate feedback on our performance, we can adjust easily and continue to flow, continue to flourish.
What game did you play as a child that you really enjoyed winning? What rules worked for you? When I was in high school, I played tennis. I was extremely competitive with it and once I decided not to play in college, I left it slide out of my life like water from a cup. I recently picked the game back up and have found I can now experience it in a different way through what I always loved about it – chasing down balls, smashing an overhead, playing until my legs feel like Jell-O. Tennis is no longer just about winning; now it’s about stress relief and enjoying the flow of being in the now. This is a groove that I fit into better into now. In this groove there is more opportunity to win.
There are arbitrary rules in our society that exist for no reason. For instance, why does ‘work’ need to mean spending 40 hours a week from 9-5 (or these days more like 8:30-5:30) in an office? Why do meetings, and TV shows, always start on the hour? When someone breaks one of the agreed upon societal rules of life (such as, you have to work hard in order to make a good living) and wins, why does a part of us get angry with them?
The temptation to limit ourselves within our own rules, and those of others, is great. But progress depends on people to step up and change the rules by pushing through them. Whatever your rules are, don’t be afraid to challenge them or anyone else’s for that matter.
Men aren’t afraid to challenge the rules; that’s why they have so many referees in football games. It’s time for more women to be so bold. I love that quote about well-behaved women rarely making history. It reminds me to challenge the rules every day. Like I said, I didn’t always do that. I worked in a cube in a Fortune 500 company, clocked my time, made good money, and socked away my 401 K contribution. But I was miserable. In times of misery, come sparks of genius. I had an idea for a business. But it was against the rules I’d grown up with – get a good job, do what the boss says, work your way up the ladder.
In those years, I couldn’t shake that boxed in feeling I got from following society’s rules. I began examining the ones that I have been living by and throwing out those that no longer served my purpose. I no longer work 9-5 (and never for a purpose I don’t believe in). I no longer finish everything on my plate before I have dessert, and I’ve even been known to interrupt, challenge authority, and protest or talk back or raise my voice if necessary in getting my point heard.
At the same time, I wrote new rules for the way I choose to live and the way that I believe I can be a winner at life. I will define a work schedule (or Chic Schedule) that fits my desired lifestyle. I will take more than 2 weeks of vacation. I will work virtually, casually, non-stop or not at all according to what I think is best. I will play, read or call a good friend whenever the mood strikes. I will dare to be different and go against the crowd in order to be true and authentic to myself.
With each rule that I have tossed out, I have felt lighter and more buoyant, and with each new tenet that I have committed to, I’ve carved a new road, one that I can enjoy riding upon as it leads me closer to my desired destination. To me winning is feeling satisfied that my business is flourishing and my life is filled with family, friends and fun, not just work.
What rule can you challenge today that will make your world and, by extension, ours a better place? I’ll let you ponder that one in your 5:00 meeting. I have a 4:15 tennis match to play. Be sweet now.
P.S. To Carve Your Own Road, read my friend Jennifer’s new book!
