A Possible Credo That One Might Choose to Live By
Barry Kort
Consider if you will, a possible credo by which one can determine how to behave toward another person. I would like to know how others feel about the usefulness of this credo, and so I invite your comments, if you wish to make them to me.
Here is how I feel one could choose to treat another person:
If I can determine (possibly by asking the other person), what is is they want from me, and if I am able to give them what they want without too much difficulty, and if I feel that doing so would be good for both of us, then I would be highly motivated to be responsive, and I surely would try.
But if I do not feel that it would be good for both of us, then it must be that I have a reason why I feel it would be bad for at least one of us. And in that case, I might not want to do it because of my feeling that it might cause more harm than good. So if I choose not to respond in the way expected, I feel that I should be willing to state my reason clearly to the other person. If I do that, then they can advise me (if they want) that they don’t understand my reasoning. If they do not wish to tell me so, I must assume that they want to see if they can figure out the reason for themselves. But if they do tell me that they do not see why I feel the way I do, then I can offer to tell them why, if they want to hear. But just knowing that I have a reason that I’m willing to explain could be all they need to know to decide what to do next. If they do ask to hear my reason, I must try to explain it in very simple terms so that they can perfectly understand it. And if after doing that they haven’t changed their mind, I can still reconsider whether I want to change mine, based on what I learned about them during our little chat. But if they do agree that my reasoning does make sense after all, then they can feel good about two things: first I did not do something that we now both agree could be harmful, and they have a better understanding of how I figured it out with common sense. But if they can show me that my reasoning has a flaw, then I am happy to learn something new that I didn’t know before, and I can let them know how appreciative I am to them for pointing out my error. And as a favor in return, I might reconsider my feelings toward giving them what they asked for. But better yet, if I fix the error in my reasoning, then perhaps I will truly change my mind and honestly agree that I should do what they wanted me to in the first place. I feel it is as simple as that.