“Treat others as you would have them treat you” is, in my opinion, a load of cr*p!
Let me explain…..
I think I read something in an S Covey book at some point that said something about treating people as THEY would like to be treated, not as YOU would like to be treated. For the first time in my life, that made sense. What a self centered thing it would be to treat people as you want to be treated. As if they are all like you? Have your needs? Have your experiences and understandings?
I’ve struggled with that saying in the past. I saw someone use it the other day and it’s been nagging at me.
Treating others as I would be treated has been my struggle in dealing with women my entire life. I have no idea how to treat other women, or perhaps I haven’t attempted to learn how to treat them?
I have spent my life surrounded by males. A brother, friends, at university (for mathematics), male-dominated sports (skeet shooting, skydiving, snowboarding - back in the day), a male-dominated career, and now a male-dominated house hold (a husband and three sons). I was a Tom-boy and played with Tonka trucks, fell out of trees, and scrapped with boys until they grew too strong. To this day, I shy away from ‘typical’ girl-stuff, or perhaps protest it all too strongly.
I’m not a typical girl. I don’t like flowers or gifts, or decorative gold things. We don’t exchange gifts and I refuse to even remotely acknowledge Feb. 14 or mother’s day, etc. We treat each other with love and respect day in and day out. I do not need forced marketing days to have somone I love and respect waste money on that stuff. I’ve never worn make up (three times in my life, and twice in complete tears of the entire processs) or heals, or carried a purse.
This is just my nature. I think I understand why most women are not like this, and I respect them for their choices and all. But I have had few ‘good’ dealings with women. Business and personal. I’ve tried - and continue to try. But, I’m constantly messing something up somehow. I feel like I’m walking on eggshells and can’t just be myself when I meet another woman. I’m worried about being misunderstood and having my words taken out of context, and eventually hurting their feelings.
This comes from treating them the way I want to be treated. I want raw honesty. No double meanings or anything (my brain is too simplistic for this - especially when emotions are involved), just honesty. I WANT to be told I look fat. Otherwise I’m just living a lie, and will take no course of action to change that and better myself. With honest responses, it’s easy to chart a course of action. It’s easy to come up with solutions, or fix misunderstandings. Without honesty, I waste time, energy (and life) trying to ‘figure it out’. In my male-dominated world, there is raw honesty. And if there isn’t, it’s pretty easy to figure out the meaning behind things.
So, I have learned, I should NOT treat women (or people in general) the way I want to be treated. I need to treat them how *they* want to be treated. This means taking the time to understand what each individuals needs are. Not what your needs are and projecting them on to someone else.
**Note: there are women I get along with and understand out there, and who are a lot like myself. My example is just with generally meeting women on a day to day basis.
