Rules, Reflect On Them Carefully, Especially The Unwritten Ones

Ask a direct question and you’ll get a direct answer, right?

Well, sometimes.

Here is an example.

How do you feel about rules? Most of us will answer, it depends. What rules are you talking about?

There was a popular song that indicated how a generation felt about having too many rules.

“Signs” is a song by the Canadian rock group Five Man Electrical Band. It was written by the band’s front man, Les Emmerson and popularized the relatively unknown band, who recorded it for their second album, Good-byes and Butterflies, in 1970.

“Signs” reached No. 4 in Canada and No. 3 on the US Billboard Hot 100 chart. Billboard ranked it as the No. 24 song for 1971. It became a gold record.

Here are some of the lyrics:

Sign, sign, everywhere a sign
Blockin’ out the scenery, breakin’ my mind
Do this, don’t do that, can’t you read the sign?

We sense that he didn’t care too much for signs because signs speak to rules.

In a civilized society why are having rules so important?

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The viewpoint at legaldesire.com is, “The law is important for a society for it serves as a norm of conduct for citizens. It keeps the society running. Without law there would be chaos and it would be survival of the fittest and everyman for himself. Not an ideal lifestyle for most part.

The law is important because it acts as a guideline as to what is accepted in society. Without it there would be conflicts between social groups and communities. It is pivotal that we follow them. The law allows for easy adoption to changes that occur in the society.”

Well said.

Do you know how many laws are created every year in American society?

In some areas probably not as many as you think and in other areas you’d be surprised.

According to a December 27, 2017 article at National Public Radio, there were 97 new laws signed in 2017.

Does that seem like a lot to you?

In another category look how many laws exist. The previous 97 were on a national level.

Earlier in the year, as reported at the Los Angeles Times on January 2, 2017, “California lawmakers passed 900 new laws last year — that’s about 7.5 bills per legislator — and most, though not all, went into effect on Sunday.”

That seems like a lot.

Let’s face it. When it comes to creating new laws in society, there is little to no control that most of us have over that. Having said that, perhaps the most important rules in our personal lives are those that we should live by.

Whatever your belief systems, we sense that we would mostly agree that the designer and manufacturer of the human body created us with some very important rules in mind, though not written down, that are in place to protect us for the betterment of our health and well-being.

They are mostly self-governed.

If you consistently eat delicious greasy hamburgers with cheese, wash it down with a cola and then top it off with some chocolate cake, pie or ice cream, over time, what is going to happen to your body?

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On the other hand, if you heavily dine on a plant based diet along with a sizable amount of fruit and drink lots of water, what tends to happen to your body then?

Living examples tend to be the most powerful.

We love watching HBO’s Vice.

Vice is a documentary TV series created and hosted by Shane Smith of Vice magazine. Produced by Bill Maher, it uses CNN journalist Fareed Zakaria as a consultant, and covers topics using an immersionist style of documentary filmmaking. It premiered on April 5, 2013, on HBO. The show’s second season aired in 2014 and won an Emmy Award for Outstanding Informational Series or Special.

Given the quality of the in depth reporting on stories that most mainstream networks won’t take the time to develop, we understand the accolades.

The one episode in particular that spoke to food and self-governing rules took place in Kuwait.

On February 8, 2018 they shared, “Obesity is now the biggest health issue facing Kuwait — and the country’s obsession with American fast food could be to blame.

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As consumers in the U.S. become more health-conscious, fast-food sales are plateauing, but in Kuwait they’re only going up. And as a result, it has become one of the most obese countries on the planet.”

Obesity is a growing health concern in Kuwait. According to Forbes magazine, Kuwait ranked 8 on a 2007 list of fattest countries with a percentage of 74.2% of Kuwait’s total population with an unhealthy weight.

From 1980 to 1993, the percentage of individuals age 18–29 that were overweight rose from 30.6% to 54.4% and the percentage of those who were overweight increased from 12.8% to 24.6%. The number of women who are either overweight or obese has jumped to 80% in 2010.

In the book “Top 10 of Everything 2011”, the women of Kuwait ranked 5th for the highest percentage of obesity.

According to the Dasman Center for Research and Treatment of Diabetes, 15% of the adult population has diabetes, with 50% of adults over 45 living with the disease. 22 of every 100 children have developed diabetes as a result of an unhealthy weight.

As we can see, even if they are not in print, the maintenance of our bodies require rules for the road.

Let’s look at one other aspect that speaks to rules, mostly unwritten.

Have you ever had your heart broken? Most of us have. In a January 29, 2018 article at Psychology Today they enlighten, “There are few things more agonizing than reflecting on a romance turned sour and wondering what could have been done differently. However, there’s also a lot we can learn from looking back at what went wrong. One thing that’s really helpful to look into when exploring our past relationships is the way we dealt with rules and boundaries.”

How true that is.

So we are starting to surmise that some of the most important rules and boundaries in life whether it speaks to diet, love, friendship, family communication, participation in society and our own personal living require rules often unwritten but ones that should be reflected upon and well thought out.

The higher the self-imposed standards, typically the better the outcome.

Even in the song quoted above, despite not being in love with signs, what did he do at the end of the song?

He created his own sign.

Let’s listen in:

And the sign said, “Everybody welcome. Come in, kneel down and pray”
But when they passed around the plate at the end of it all, I didn’t have a
penny to pay. So I got me a pen and a paper and I made up my own little sign
I said, “Thank you, Lord, for thinkin’ ’bout me. I’m alive and doin’ fine.”