Q: As long as my actions benefit me and my family, why should I care if someone I don’t know is harmed?

A: That seems to be the way most people go about living their lives. What they don’t take into account is that everything that exists is based on everything that has come before. People size you up quickly. If they see you as selfish, self-centered and willing to harm them to advance yourself, you will be treated in kind. If you treat people decently, even if you haven’t done so in the past, you will notice that people change the way they treat you. If you have been a jerk for a long time like I was, it will take a while for people to believe you have changed. Be patient. After all, you are reaping what you have sown.

So, the short answer to your question is self-interest. There are other reasons which you will discover over time but self-interest is the reason I suggest based on your question.

Q: How do I know if my actions are beneficial or neutral to others? I don’t know what people want.

A: A wise man once said that you don’t have to know every tree in the forest to understand the nature of a tree. Similarly, you don’t have to know every human being to understand what people find beneficial, harmful or neutral. This is the essence of the Golden and Platinum Rules.

Additionally, the emotions you feel when deciding to act or not act are important to the outcome. Ask yourself, “What am I feeling? What is my motivation?” When we act out of anger, jealousy, greed, hatred, vengeance and the like, our speech and actions will be harmful to ourselves and others. No exceptions.

Moreover, before you speak or act, take a moment and consider the possible outcomes of what you intend to do. This isn’t a revolutionary idea. Didn’t some wise person in your life advise you to “count to ten” when you are angry? I am just suggesting that you do more with that pause than count. Remember, everything that exists, exists because of everything that came before. If you act with malice, what kind of future will you create for yourself? Your future cannot be better than the actions you took to create it.

Once you have acted, observe. What was the outcome? Was it what you anticipated or something else? When you do these after action evaluations it helps fine tune your understanding of cause and effect.

Q: There are a lot of people I would sooner punch in the face than treat kindly.

A: Very likely, the feeling is mutual. But you do raise a good point.

Back in the days when I was working as a Psychologist, I was regularly asked to provide pre-sentencing mental health and substance abuse reports to the court. Most of the defendants were charged with violent crimes. If there was a mental health or substance abuse issue, the judge made sure successfully completing a treatment program was part of the sentence. On this occasion, I was asked to evaluate a man with a long history of convictions for violent behavior. This time, he was convicted of assault during a bar fight. Someone bumped into him, as he told the cops, and “spilled my shirt all over his beer.” When I asked the man why he started throwing punches, he said very matter-of-factly, “I had to hit him. He made me mad.”  

That answer stuck with me because it was a simple and direct way of saying, “I am a slave. A slave to my emotions. I am not captain of my own ship. I’m just along for the ride.” The man had no understanding of how his lack of skill kept bringing him back to court.

It is possible to learn to master your emotions. Doing so is definitely part of living artfully. Or, one can go around punching people in the face. But don’t be surprised if those same people punch you back or you end up in court. Cause and effect my friend.

Q: Won’t this make me a “people pleaser” and subject to being manipulated and taken advantage of?

A: Remember, the art of living is behaving in ways that are beneficial or neutral to oneself and others. Being taken advantage of and being manipulated are neither beneficial nor neutral. There are times when doing what someone wants you to do is harmful to you and to them.

For example, my late wife had a childhood friend who possessed exceptional mechanical skills. He was truly gifted when it came to building and repairing almost anything. He never had to look for work. Employers understood his capability. Job offers regularly came his way. Good offers. It looked like his financial future was secure. But it wasn’t to be.

I am not quite sure how it happened, but by the time this man was in his early 30’s, he was severely addicted to alcohol, heroin and meth. Multiple arrests and convictions followed, including one for manslaughter which resulted in a prison sentence. His reputation was ruined. Employers no longer extended job offers. It didn’t matter much because he was no longer looking for work. His entire life was organized around finding and using drugs. Eventually, he became homeless.

Initially, my wife felt sorry for her old friend. He often came around asking for money… usually accompanied by a hard luck story… I need an operation… My truck broke down… I can’t afford a lawyer. You get the idea. For a while, my wife provided the requested money. But nothing ever changed. He learned nothing about his conduct and everything about my wife being an easy mark. This is an example of how doing something that a person wants you to do is harmful to everyone involved.  

Eventually, my wife recognized that she was not helping. We were just scraping by at the time ourselves. And the generosity she extended to her friend just bought him more drugs. When that realization sank in, we agreed that the next time her friend came around asking for money, she would tell him the bank was closed. When we told him, he became extremely upset. He yelled, he threatened, he pleaded, he made promises everyone knew were empty. But that was it, the bank was closed and it stayed closed.

Remember, being manipulated and taken advantage of do not meet the beneficial or neutral standards. If someone wants help, you get to define what help is. The person can decide to accept your definition of help or not. Take it or leave it. Use your situational awareness and make skillful decisions.

Q: What about survival of the fittest? Don’t nice guys finish last?

A: I was hoping someone would ask this question. The term, “survival of the fittest,” is widely misunderstood and improperly used. Most people attribute the term to Charles Darwin, but he never used it. It certainly doesn’t describe his ideas about biologic diversity.

Charles Darwin knew nothing about DNA but observed that offspring from the same parents are biologically different to some degree. Think about your own kids. They don’t look the same (excluding twins), they don’t act the same, they don’t have the same skill sets. Same parents. Unique children. Darwin further observed that some of this biological uniqueness is beneficial. The differences can make it more likely that the individual creature will survive and thrive. Easier survival predicts more successful reproduction thus passing the beneficial traits along to future generations. Darwin called this biological process “natural selection.” He never used the term, “survival of the fittest.” And Darwin only addressed biologic diversity. He never suggested that natural selection applies to the social order.

Herbert Spencer and others misinterpreted Darwin’s work, perhaps intentionally, developing a philosophy called Social Darwinism. Spencer’s philosophy holds that human beings who possess wealth and political power control these resources because they are superior to mere mortals like you and me. And because these wealthy, powerful people are superior, they are justified in doing whatever they want to do to become more wealthy and more powerful even if us lesser creatures are crushed in the process. Spencer coined the phrase “survival of the fittest” to justify the crushing process. Naturally, this played well with the monied class.

Spencer’s philosophy gave rise to all sorts of social evils including eugenics (killing or sterilizing infants because of birth defects or because their parents were inferior to Caucasians), genocide, slavery and a host of other Ills. If you buy into the concept of survival of the fittest, ask yourself, “Am I… are my children… inferior creatures to say, Mark Zuckerberg or Elon Musk?” “Is a trust fund baby who has never worked a day in his/her life superior to me and my family who were not given unlimited funds by daddy?” “Should a child born with autism be killed or sterilized to protect the purity of the human species?” “Is the person who just robbed me at gunpoint, superior to me because he has money and power and I don’t?” Spencer would answer all of these questions with, yes. Darwin would not. How about you?

Q: How can I go about living artfully? It seems Impossible.

A: Artful living is one of those things that is simple but not easy. Futbol/soccer is a good analogy. In soccer, all one needs to do is kick a ball into a goal… and you have a team of people to help you do it. Simple. But not easy. Life presents us with many similar challenges. One thing they all have in common is that they require the diligent practice of specific skills. These skills are often referred to as the “fundamentals.” If you don’t practice the fundamentals, you will never approach proficiency. You know the old joke about how you get to Carnegie Hall? Practice, practice, practice.

The fundamentals of artful living include situational awareness, goodwill toward others, kindness, generosity, determination and taking responsibility for your own actions, even when they are not laudable. There are others but we are running out of time so I will leave it there for now. If you want to start with one fundamental, I might suggest situational awareness. That means, taking out the ear buds, logging off social media, putting down the phone and observing the world around you closely and carefully. Simple but not easy.

It’s time for us to wrap up here for today. As we do, please let me remind you that I am not telling anyone what they should or should not do. I am merely suggesting that there is an approach to living that will greatly reduce suffering in our own lives and the lives of others. 

But don’t take my word for it, investigate for yourselves.  

Thank you all for coming, take care and drive safely.