Rule of Life (21 page)

Don’t be frightened to put yourself forward or to volunteer (just so long as you know what you are volunteering for). There is no kudos in being work-shy. Be proud of being effective and efficient.

• Know your boundaries. Know how to say “no,” and mean it. Don’t let anyone take advantage of your good nature.

Be assertive without being aggressive.

• Enjoy what you do. Have a passion for your work.

Have fun.

W E H AV E TO B E M O R A L

A N D D E C E N T A N D H O N E S T

A N D T R U S T WO R T H Y ,

O F C O U R S E .

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Be Aware of the Damage You Are

Doing

This Rule doesn’t mean, as yet, that you have to do anything.

All it means is a conscious decision to evaluate what you are doing to the environment, the world, and whether it is a good thing or a bad thing. You might choose to change what you do in the light of this evaluation. Or you may not, either because you figure what the heck or because you figure you’re pretty

“green” already and don’t need to change anything.

The reason I say “Don’t do anything as yet” is that it is all too easy to rush headlong into action without having all the facts in front of you. You need to know if the changes you are making are actually making things better or worse. For example, when my youngest child was born, I was seriously concerned about the reports of the damage disposable diapers were doing. Apparently, they take some 500 years to decom-pose. But I was also concerned that cloth diapers took a lot of washing with all the usage of electricity, soap, water, etc. And some argue they are both as bad as each other when it comes to damaging the environment. Trouble is, you have to use something, or you risk damaging your carpets…

So you might like to consider what car you drive; what sort of heating you use in your house; how you get to your vacation destinations (planes aren’t that environmentally friendly by all accounts); whether you recycle; if somebody else can use what you don’t want—that sort of thing. I leave the details entirely up to you (heaven forbid that I should lecture anyone on these matters) but it’s good to have a conscience about these things and to try to minimize the damage we are doing.

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This goes back to the big theme underpinning all of the Rules, namely that we need to go through our lives with our eyes open, conscious and aware of what we are doing and the effect we are having on the environment and on other people around us. We don’t have to become goody-goodies, but we should be at least giving it some thought.

I think the time for complacency is over, and it really is time to consider the impact we make quite carefully. And once we have considered it, we might like to start making a few changes to improve things. If we all did a little bit, it would make a grand difference.

W E D O N ’ T H AV E TO

B E C O M E G O O DY - G O O D I E S , B U T W E S H O U L D B E AT

L E A S T G I V I N G I T S O M E

T H O U G H T.

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Be for the Glory, Not the

Degradation

We can work for the glory of humankind, or we can try to bring it all crashing down into degradation. Shakespeare is for the glory; a crack house is for the degradation. A neighbor-hood party on a warm summer’s afternoon is for the glory; stealing someone’s purse is for the degradation. And it doesn’t have to be tame; a parachute jump for charity is for the glory; porn is for the degradation—but an erotic movie can be for the glory. Get the idea?

Anything that makes us more than we are, makes us strive for perfection, improves us, challenges us, excites us in a good way, makes us rise above our base nature, and brings us out into the sunshine is for the glory.

So what are you going to be for? The glory or the degradation?

Well, for the glory, of course. My fear is that you will think this is all about being good and that has a bad press. All our lives we have been told that being good is a bad thing, somehow dull, for the meek and goody-goodies, the sandal wearers, the holier-than-thou brigade. Being good hasn’t had a lot going for it. As a kid at school, if you tried to be good, you got beaten up. At work if you try to be good they call you the boss’s pet.

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Well, being good, being for the glory is a private thing. You don’t have to tell a soul. If you keep it quiet, you are being good. If you brag about it, you are a goody-goody. If you interfere with others and try to make them be good, you are a do-gooder. Just make a decision to be for the glory and say nothing.

J U S T M A K E A D E C I S I O N TO

B E FO R T H E G LO R Y A N D

S AY N OT H I N G .

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Be Part of the Solution, Not the

Problem

This goes further than just being good, being for glory not degradation. This is about positive, affirmative action. Look, if we don’t take some action then this world, this fabulous planet of ours, is going to hell in a handbasket. I was reading an arti-cle the other day about the Easter Islands and how they could stand as a perfect metaphor for our own sad predicament.

The Easter Islands were settled by a Polynesian race around 500 years ago.* They found an island heavy with wildlife and heavily wooded with trees. Within a few short years, they had eaten the way through the wildlife and chopped down all the trees. They also polluted the rivers and were on the verge of extinction. The only thing that has rescued them is tourism.

Planet Earth has no tourists. No one is going to rescue us so they can take our photo. We all have to start being a part of the solution now and stop adding to the mayhem, the destruc-tion, the problem. And we start to be part of the solution when we stand up and get counted. We stop the problem when we stop saying, “I was just doing my duty,” or “It was part of my job.” Come on, we have to stop the nonsense now, or we’re going to be relegated to being some vast amusement park for aliens—who aren’t coming.

*Don’t write in if I got the facts vaguely wrong—it’s a metaphor.

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So the Rule is to start looking for ways we can personally contribute to the solution. We have to take part, get involved, find solutions, take action, get off our backsides and contribute. If you want your life to feel right, to be good, to be successful and mean something, you have to put something back. You have to pay back your loan. You have to reinvest in life, and that means caring and wanting things to get better.

LO O K , I F W E D O N ’ T TA K E

S O M E ACT I O N

T H E N T H I S WO R L D ,

T H I S FA B U LO U S P L A N E T

O F O U R S ,

I S G O I N G TO H E L L I N A H A N D B A S K E T.

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Check What History Would Say

About You

So what is history going to say about you? What do you feel in your heart of hearts is going to be your epithet after you’ve gone? And I don’t mean what is engraved on your tombstone but written in some great cosmic record of the universe.

Personally, I don’t think I’ll even warrant a footnote. But if I do, I would like history to record that I had a go, made an effort, tried my best to make a difference. That I stood up for what I believed in, stood up to get counted, and stood up for my rights. I would like history to say, maybe, that I got up off my backside and just stood up—it would be enough.

And you, my friend, what would you like? What do you think history will say? What would you like history to say? Is there a gap between these two? Can you bridge it? What do you have to do to make that gap connect? Think about both what it would say about you as a person and about your deeds.

We have to care, if we want to be successful, that those who come after are going to inherit a better world than the one we found ourselves in. You remember all those books on self-suf-ficiency that were all the rage back in the 1970s?* Well, a key thing they all seemed to have in common was they said if you had land, you had to make better use of it than the person who had it before you. You had to improve it. Same with this world. We have to consciously make the effort to improve it before we go. We have to take responsibility for what we’ve been given and make a better use of it before we shuffle off and pass it on.

* Yes, yes, I, too, was sold the dream and moved to the country to grow my own yogurt, wear sandals, and eat lentils. It didn’t last long—not for me anyway.

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How will we point at the polluted oceans, the dried-up rivers, the melted ice caps and say to our metaphorical children,

“One day all this will be yours—oh, and sorry about what we did with it.” I think they may be a little angry at us. History may indeed write us off as termite people. We have destroyed and polluted and slaughtered and made a pretty poor show of things. Individually, we can make a difference. We must make a difference. Individually history must hold us accountable.

The trouble is there are so many people who won’t change because they think they won’t be held accountable. If there is no one watching, they think they can get away with murder.

History will make short work of them.

H I S TO R Y M AY I N D E E D

W R I T E U S O F F A S

T E R M I T E P E O P L E .

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Not Everything Can Be Green

I’ve just heard about a man* who invented shoes that recharge your mobile phone battery while you’re walking. Brilliant. I want a pair, but they all look like rugged walking boots—

designed for areas where recharging equipment isn’t available, such as jungles and deserts. I’ll have a pair when they make them in Oxford brogues. Not everything can be green. Not everyone can be as organic and as green as we would have them be.

OK, we’ve gone through the rant about the state of the world and what we’re doing to it. Now I’m going to give you a tiny get-out clause. Not everything can be green. There has to be by-products. There has to be some pollution. There has to be some damage. We are vast in number—billions of humans living on the planet have to have an effect—and we have to live. There will always be some damage. Our job is to limit it, but it is unrealistic to attempt to eliminate it altogether. It’s all a question of balance, of priorities.

It is unrealistic to demand the immediate elimination of all motor vehicles in the world; it’s not going to happen. But we can do our bit by buying cars that use less fuel, emit cleaner exhaust fumes, use recyclable materials in their construction.

But they won’t be totally green. They can’t be.

We might all rush off to disaster zones to lend a hand, but we’ll fly there, and aircraft emit huge quantities of exhaust fumes. You see, we are making choices all the time. Driving to work, heating our homes, what we wear, what we eat. We can’t

*Trevor Bayliss—he also invented the wind-up radio.

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expect everyone to be as green as we want to be. We can’t expect everything to be as green as we would have it.

If we all manage to achieve a reduction, it helps. If we all do our bit, it helps. If we are all conscious about what we are doing, it helps. But we can’t expect perfection. We can’t turn things around overnight. If you’re trying so hard to be green that it’s causing you a great deal of stress and your life is suffering as a result (just try to go food/household shopping and buy nothing at all in plastic, and you’ll quickly see what I mean), then stop. Make an effort, but accept that it’s never going to be totally perfect. Just so long as we are trying to do something, it helps.

N OT E V E R YO N E CA N B E A S

O R GA N I C A N D A S G R E E N

A S W E WO U L D

H AV E T H E M B E .

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Put Something Back

I firmly believe that none of us asked to be born and that this world doesn’t owe us a living, or anything. But by the same token we are in debt up to our armpits. Sure, we didn’t get a choice about being here, but once we are here we get fed and watered, entertained and amused, challenged and educated, awed and flabbergasted. It’s all here on offer for us. We can do pretty much anything we want. We can take from this world all it has to offer. And this world has an amazing amount to offer all of us.

We can take and take and take. There is nothing to say we can’t. What I am suggesting is that we sleep better at night if we put something back. After the show, be one of the volunteers clearing up.

Be generous with everything. Be generous with your generos-ity. You don’t have to give money, but rather your time and care. If you have a special talent, use it to help others in some way. If you have facilities, lend them to others who need them.

If you have the power to effect change for the better, then use it. If you have influence, use it.

And if you don’t? I’m sure that we all can make a difference in our own small way. We might have to look carefully or use our imagination a bit or be creative in how we define “giving something back.”

We don’t all have to become charity workers or missionaries, but we could sponsor a child in need. We don’t have to turn our house into a shelter for the homeless, but we could start a R U L E 1 0 5

wildlife patch in our garden. We don’t have to become totally organic, but we could recycle a bit more or just ask questions about the companies we choose to buy from.

I guess we all have to ask ourselves: “Is this world a richer place for me being in it? Will I leave it a better place than when I came into it? Have I made a difference to someone’s life? Have I put something back?”

W E S L E E P B E T T E R

AT N I G H T I F W E P U T

S O M E T H I N G B AC K .

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Find a New Rule Every Day—or

Occasionally at Least

So, that’s about it—106 Rules for a successful and fulfilled life.