One For Truth

Do to others as you would have them do to you... or just be an asshole

I was thinking about assholes today. The context here is that we have family members who, without the slightest frame of reference for what it means to care for a relative in the home who cannot meet his or her own most basic needs, are full of opinions on how that care should be provided. Now I'm not one to swear gratuitously but I keep finding myself saying "Assholes!" on a regular basis when I hear or hear about the latest uninformed and callous opinion from the bleachers about the level of care that my mom is receiving from her doctors and my incredible wife (who, by the way, has spent very nearly a year away from her home and family to care for my mother).

We've all heard the adage "opinions are like assholes--everybody's got one," but I'm increasingly finding that assholes are full of opinions and the need to express them. In fact, I'm going to postulate the theory that when one's need to express an opinion exceeds their desire to gather more information about that which they are about to pass judgment on, they are at risk of becoming an asshole. Once they state their opinion the line has been crossed.

And it all comes down to this: assholes violate the Golden Rule. Oblivious to the fact that "no one wants to be 'should' upon," they do the very thing to others that would enrage them if it was done to them. Doing to others as we would have them do to us is putting ourselves in others' positions and making sure we don't do to them what we wouldn't want done to us.

No wonder it occupies the most prominent position in Judeo-Christian ethics: God understands that we all have an inner asshole. I'm beginning to wonder how much of the spiritual work of men and women is just making sure that no matter their accomplishments or failures at the toils and tasks of daily existence, at least they weren't assholes to anybody.

posted by Zeke @ 8:50 AM