LM, Episode 1228, 5/1/23, This Will Be On The Test

The summer before my senior year of college was the hottest in Kansas City history. We had 17 straight days in July over 100 degrees. I was living in a $93 a month apartment without air conditioning and it was just as miserable as it sounds.

Needing a humanities class to graduate, I enrolled in Ethics because the heat made me realize I didn’t want to spend eternity in what my Grandma Rowan called, “a lake of fire,” and it was offered in the library which had air conditioning.

When we studied the Golden Rule, Dr. David said every religion had a version of it and all were intended to treat people as you’d want to be treated not so they’d reciprocate, a Quid Pro Quo, but because you loved people. I’m thinking I need to remember that because it sounds like it’ll be on the test.

Years later my wife, Twyla, and I were at the movies seeing As Good As It Gets and she laughed and laughed because that wasn’t Jack Nicholson on the screen, it was Kent Rader. I do have obsessive compulsive tendencies, cleaning my hands more than the average person, but I believe that says more about the average person than it does me and I’m right because, during the pandemic, when they told everyone to wash their hands, half of America was like, “What? Wash my hands? I took a show on Tuesday.”

Jack Nicholson said things in that movie that have come out of my mouth like, “I’m drowning here and you’re describing the water,” but one attitude I’m ashamed I have had most of my life is like when he helps Carol the waitress, he asks for a favor. When she asks, “Are you saying accepting your help obligates me,” he responds, “Is there another way to look at it?”

Fortunately, I have learned there are other ways to look at it. Once when Twyla and I were on vacation in Santa Fe, we’re arguing about something I’d done for her that I didn’t think she appreciated enough and she snapped, “Do you ever do anything for someone just because it will make them happy, not expecting anything in return?”

Don’t you hate people who hold up a mirror to you and force you to take an honest look at yourself? “You mean that Golden Rule stuff wasn’t just for the test, I’m supposed to live it?”

As a leader, I believe it’s essential to follow the Golden Rule, treating employees as we would want to be treated, with honesty, integrity, and respect, not in the hopes they will reciprocate, but simply because it is the right thing to do. .

Being in a relationship with Twyla has made me a better person, which is sometimes more difficult than being the selfish person I was before I met her. That is when I quote another As Good As It Gets line, “Twyla’s evicted me from my life.”

Have a great week and always remember laughter matters.

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