Preferences vs. Rules

When your rules outnumber your preferences, you rule out many of life's enjoyable experiences. That's the topic of this week's Grasshopper Notes essay for the week of November 28th.

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Transcript

Preferences vs. Rules - Grasshopper

Seems we all have preference and rules we live by. A conundrum appears when we confuse the two.

Let’s look at basic examples of each. A preference can be simply stated as preferring one thing over another. For example, “I prefer Chinese over Mexican food.” Or “I like Mexican food more than Chinese cuisine.”

Rules are harder and come to mind faster. They are ways of doing things that have been drilled into us through conditioning and have a serious feel to them. Many rules contain these words: All, Every, Never.

“All sentences must not end with a preposition.” “Every rodeo clown has to like animals.” “Never ask a woman her age.” 

But trouble ensues when we insist the way we like to do things is the way all people should do things. That’s when we turn our preferences into rules.

My grandmother had an expression she used that seems to be a workaround to this practice. She would say, “As a rule . . .” To my mind, this implied there were exceptions to rules. “As a rule, women shouldn’t wear skirts above the knees.” Or “As a rule, a man should walk on the traffic side of the sidewalk when escorting a woman.”

Notice that people with lots of rules are the least flexible. I have no evidence to back this up other than my own experience, but I find that inflexible people get constricting diseases more often than their adaptable counterparts. I’m reminded of a metaphor I heard years ago: “A young branch bends; an old branch snaps.”

I’m all for following the rules, especially when the rules apply to all, like the rule of gravity. “Never step off a cliff . . . unless you have a parachute.”

When we issue our preferences as rules, people on the receiving end often feel like they’re under attack. This causes them to retreat from or avoid our company.

So, to sum up . . . As a rule, it’s best not to insist your preferences be rules others should live by. Better to channel your inner Gumby and stretch yourself to be more bendable.

All the best,

John