To ring in the new year, I thought I’d tell you more about my core value and philosophy. They are really quite simple when boiled down: Fairness and Happiness. Of course, those two words mask a lot of meaning, so let me break down what they mean to me.
Fairness
This is my version of the Golden Rule, but I find ‘treat others as you would like to be treated’ a little simplistic. Instead, I say treated others fairly. This means don’t prejudge them, don’t overreact, and don’t harm them. Pretty simple, right? Not usually.
First off, everyone has their own biases, and everything you do brings those into play. Some of them we recognize consciously, but we also carry around a lot of unconscious bias. I know what my conscious biases are. For example, I’m very progressive politically. As a result, I know that I have a bias against most right-wing political ideas. This is not necessarily a bad thing, especially since most of the time those ideas are inherently unfair, but I must also recognize that I bring this bias into every conversation and it affects my view of the person I’m talking to. To be fair to them, I must sometimes separate my bias of their ideas from my interaction with them. Especially in situations where their political views are not relevant, or in emergency situations where they might need my aid. Humanity first, then politics.
Unconscious bias is a lot harder to recognize, but I work on correcting that whenever it comes up. For example, I grew up in middle-class, white suburbia where I was taught that other races were basically less, especially African-Americans. This was reinforced rather heavily through school, church, some family, and the neighborhood. I never understood why, and I handily rejected such nonsense. However, after I became an adult and moved out into the big city for college, I would notice that I kept having random racist thoughts pop into my head for no reason. I realized that this was my upbringing, and not me. I also realized that if I caught myself thinking some of them, maybe I wasn’t catching myself all the time, and I started to watch my behavior. Sure enough, there were ingrained behaviors that were the result of my upbringing. I was disgusted. I couldn’t believe I would act such a way. Then I realized I wasn’t doing it consciously, and I vowed to better pay attention and erase all that brainwashing from my childhood. I’m happy to say that I’ve succeeded….mostly. I don’t know if we can ever truly erase our unconscious bias, but I have learned to recognize when it is happening which allows me to correct myself. I encourage you to do the same.
Part of fairness is not causing harm. I see this as akin to the Hippocratic Oath’s ‘First Do No Harm’ clause. Physical harm is the easiest part of this. Very simple, don’t hurt someone. Emotional harm is a lot harder. I don’t always know when I’ve done that. I have to pay attention and not be self-absorbed and notice how my words and actions are affecting someone else. I’ll admit, that hasn’t always been easy, and it’s still the hardest part of being fair. Something I do, which I considered innocuous, might have caused a lot of emotional distress. All I can do then is to stop what I’m doing, apologize, and try to help them recover (which, by the way, might mean leaving them alone or going away for awhile). I used to be guilty of causing emotional harm far too often. I was in a dark emotional place myself and completely unable to see how my actions were affecting the world. I’m happy to say that those days are past, but I’m still vigilant.
The last part of fairness I want to discuss is fairness to yourself. This is often overlooked to the detriment of oneself. Everyone has their own needs. It’s imperative that you see to them. Being fair to others without being fair to yourself is not helping them, it’s harming you. And fairness requires not harming anyone, even yourself. Sometimes people assume that since they’ve met their physical needs (food, clothing, shelter) that they are just being bitchy if they have complaints. Those complaints are you expressing an emotional need, though. Listen to yourself. Address those needs. Emotional health is just as important as physical. I didn’t understood that myself until recently. You have the right to be happy.
Happiness
Now that you’ve read about my core value, fairness, let me tell you about my philosophy, happiness. To put it simply: Follow the Happy. Find what makes you happy, and pursue it. Sounds simple, right? Again, not usually.
It took me a long time to realize what made me happy. I pursued hobbies out of habit or because my friends did them. I stayed in jobs because I felt obligated despite being miserable. I held on to friendships and lovers because I thought the attention was happiness when it was really just a mask for the loneliness. Most of these things I clung to because I had them already, and I assumed that giving them up would be worse than having them. That I’d never find anything better so I’d should try to enjoy what I had.
To be honest, I don’t know what changed, or how I began to realize that was harmful to myself. Somewhere along the way I did, though. I started to look for things that actually brought me joy, and surprisingly I found them. Then I found more. Then I realized the things and people I was holding on to for the wrong reasons were toxic to me, and I let them go. Suddenly, I was so much happier and my health improved, my outlook improved and my relationships improved.
Sure there are things in life we must endure, especially in our society. However, if you have other things or people that make you happy, it is so much easier to endure them. That burden becomes so much lighter.
I have a word of caution about happiness, though. You are the only one responsible for your own happiness, and you are the only one that can ensure it. Likewise, you can’t make someone else happy. You can facilitate their happiness, but only they can make themselves happy, and only they are responsible for their happiness. Don’t take on that burden. It’s not fair to you, or to them.
Everything Else
Fairness and Happiness: everything else stems from them. How I treat others. How I treat myself. How I want to shape the world around me into a better place for everyone. I don’t always succeed at either, but I always strive for them. It’s one of the reasons I started this blog, to show others how I found happiness, and to show them I overcame unfairness to make the world a little more fair to others.
Be brave, be bold, bring joy into the world.