I’ve been procrastinating long and hard on this post. It’s not that I don’t want to write it, it’s more that I want to get it right. But I want to get some sleep at some point tonight (I haven’t had a night off without kids since my last one in Japan, on November 29th) so here I am just writing it.

Honesty, honour (I managed to eke out one American spelling for the title; sorry Tasha, that’s the best I can do), and ethics, to me, are the most important qualities in a person. I’m no harder on anyone else on these points than I am on myself. I demand them of myself constantly. I come by it honestly enough.

The Golden Rule was drummed into me as a child to the extent that I’ve developed a love/hate relationship with it. Yes, it should be followed always, but it seems a no-brainer. While many people consider it a purely ethical teaching, I can see an equal amount of logic in it. Like Newton’s third law (every action has an equal and opposite reaction), “do unto others as you would have them do unto you” simply makes sense. I’ve begun to see it in action on a daily basis, now that I have a puppy in the house.

Alex is on a feeding pump at home for at least a few hours every day. The pump (which is like an IV pump) has a tube running through it which attaches to a valve in his stomach; it delivers his formula directly. There is about three feet of tubing between his belly and the machine, so if he walks away from the device, the tube sits on the floor. Alex is deathly afraid of the dog grabbing and pulling on the tube, so every time the pup comes near, he screams and pushes him away. The puppy, being a puppy, thinks this means he wants to wrestle. Which makes the situation so much worse than if he quietly held the dog at arm’s length until it got bored and walked away.

Golden Rule or Newton’s Law? Or both?

While my example doesn’t really have a lot to do with behaving ethically, honourably, or honestly, it’s a prime example of why we must react to and treat all humans and creatures as kindly as we can, with as much understanding as we are able to muster. Wouldn’t the world be so much better if puppies weren’t pushed away from enteral feeding devices? And we all just got along quietly and calmly?

The “Honorable” prompt is brought to you by Tasha at Corner Of Confessions. Please click on the link to visit her blog, and follow her if you aren’t already!

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