We are all born into this world with one common denominator, freewill. We are free to choose how we wish to live our lives. We have a set of common laws to guide us. Not the laws, too numerous to mention, made by people or government officials, but a set of common sense laws. They are as follows and these are taken directly from a book titled, Meet Your Strawman:
1. You must not injure or kill anyone.
2. You must not steal or damage things owned by somebody else.
3. You must be honest in your dealings and not swindle anyone.
Three simple, common sense laws that, if were followed, would change the entire world.
When we, as the human race, decide something is wrong, we are placing or casting judgement on whatever that particular "something" is. Many of these wrongs are taught to us, by our parents or the circle of people we spend the most time with. Mother always taught me that to take food or drink into a place of business was wrong. When I asked why, she said it was rude. Since I heard that more than once, I came to believe that it was an absolute truth.
While shopping in the big box store that carries everything from undergarments to fishing hooks, I observed a young woman pushing her cart down the aisle and noticed she was eating something. We were in the personal care section of the store and I was in search of hand lotion. I walked up and down every aisle in this section, twice, and there was no lotion to be found. The next time I passed her, I took a closer look. Yes, she was eating and had obviously just gone through the closest drive-thru and grabbed lunch. The training I had received from my youth kicked into gear and I immediately thought, "how rude", as I swung the cart left, in search of the illusive hand lotion.
Finding the lotion next to the Valentine's Day display, where I'm sure everyone keeps their hand lotion, I had a thought come over me. Did the young woman break any of the common laws? She obviously had not injured or killed anyone while wielding a french fry. She had not damaged anything other than the grease and fat she was putting in her body, but that was her choice and since most drive-thru eateries have a "pay first" window, she most likely had paid for her meal.
I began to turn around my years of indoctrination and think of other reasons why she thought it was a good idea to eat while shopping. Maybe she knew what would happen if she shopped on an empty stomach. Maybe she had numerous errands to run and no time to stop and enjoy her meal. Perhaps her reason was simple, maybe she was just hungry.
This is a simple example and I am not against having manners and common courtesy, although that is a choice I choose to make for myself. I am not saying Mother was wrong in all that she taught, I'm pretty sure she was taught the same thing. The point I am trying to make is, if we would weigh the things we think are wrong against the common laws, there would be lots of things we could stop casting judgement on. We could stop pointing fingers, whispering behind others' backs, rolling our eyes....we could stop judging others by our own standards.
The way we judge, is the same measure as the way we will be judged. Think on that for awhile. Make a list of the things you believe are wrong and then put them on the scale of the three common laws. Figuring out that we have been wrong ourselves is a liberating experience. Without wasting our precious time judging others, we have so much more time to enjoy our lives and to practice our freewill.
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