Rules. They run this world, they run us, and they are the key to keeping the peace between peoples. Sometimes those rules are self-imposed, sometimes they are decided on for a community, but either way, they keep us on a path of least resistance. Sometimes, though, they just get in our way, and sometimes they are rules that are so horribly dehumanizing that people look at each other and wonder what we did that we even think that this is right.

I have some rules of my own, everyone does. In some cases, these rules might confuse people, and in other cases, it seems that someone doesn’t have any rules period. But everyone has these rules.

Here are some of my rules:

  1. Be courteous to all, you can always be mean later.
  2. While you can never know the entire story, never make a judgment on only one side.
  3. Look your best. A first impression only happens once, and they can be crucial.
  4. Do not hurt anyone without reason, and the punishment must fit the crime.
  5. Help everyone that you can, work to help the ones you can’t, and pray for the ones that you couldn’t.
  6. And try your best. Try for 100%, not just 85%.

Now, these rules are the ones that I find the most important to me, and this is how I live. Now rule #5 is becoming more and more difficult as the 45 President of the United States hurts and tears apart families at our borders, puts tariffs on products, pulls our troops out of countries that asked for our protection, and made the business world the controller of our country, not the people’s needs. I might be a dreamer, but this is absolutely ridiculous!

On top of that, the “rumors” of President 45 not following and cheating his way out of all sorts of laws is just…mindboggling. Those rules are there for a reason, to keep the playing field level. Though I should be adding more names to this list, which honestly might be an ever-expanding list. The number of rules that are being broken over the account of money and greed is going to make Hell overflow and even Lucifer wince! This is an insult to all of the others who worked hard, then got their job/place/things taken from them by someone who was too lazy and spoilt to do it themselves. Although, if your success is so important to you that you will cheat, lie, and threaten to accomplish it, then you obviously have not done anything that should give you any kind of power now, have you? To be fair, at that point that power should be taken from you.

But what is just as bad, is the rest of us turning a blind eye. Or maybe not even doing that, but instead watching in silence and not speaking up for those who need us to. I am as guilty of this crime as the rest, but my excuse is that I am young, inexperienced, and without the information to do this right. But then, the people that can help these problems don’t see them. All they see are their pockets or their corporations, but most often just the next law that will put their name in a stone block or up their reputation. We are dying here, caught in a Gordian knot, but this time we do not have an Alexander the Great to cut it (which is probably good because he murdered a bunch of people). This time, we have to be the ones to untie it, piece by piece, string by string.

And we need to start now.