The Unwritten Rule Book

I guess I’ve always known that I saw the world a bit differently from everyone else but it took quite a while for me to really become acquainted with just how differently. A few years ago now I found that work colleague stopped talking to me, which I took great offense at. It was somewhat childish and something that could have been sorted out so easily if they had bothered to talk to me about. Well she eventually went to a manager but sadly all I got told was that she found me rude without any details and when I asked I found that the rest of the world thought telling me I was rude should have been enough to solve the problem.

Quite the reverse I finally pried some information out of one of my colleagues that she found my not saying hello to her in the morning was a big problem. Well it sounds rude when I put it like that but when you don’t start work at the same time, often don’t work in the same room, and she would be busy washing sharp instruments or handling chemicals when I entered the room, it seems less rude right (maybe not to you?). The interesting thing is that what she expected was that I would come into the room, shout good morning to everyone (she was slightly deaf too) and then go on with my work.

 I find this horrifically rude and I hate it when people come in and do that. It trashes my concentration, scares the hell out of me and I would far rather people didn’t. If you want my attention please come over to me, and wait until I look at you. I might also add that to do what she asked is terrifying for me and something that put my nerves on edge. I expect people to be really annoyed that someone destroyed their concentration or demanded their attention because I entered a room.

I find it strange that having had her complain, the people they were not in the least bit interested in what the problem was, but that is another thing.

The point here is that although you may have very understandable reasons for what you do, other people may not see it the same way and this rule of thumb when dealing with people was completely useless when dealing with this woman. She wanted to be disturbed whereas I hate it.

But since then I have found that everyone has their own set of rules and not all of them are as reasonable as you might think.

Therapy brought me up against a lot of my rules and assumptions about how the world worked or rather how I saw the world and myself in it. It seems strange to me now that so many of the things that I took for granted as how you did things, or how things were, were not actually that good for me. They caused me a great deal of pain, I used for instance to put myself last in everything, from the need for relaxation, to my desires. The men in the family where the ones who mattered and I was to give them what they needed, before they even knew what it was themselves and to hell with what I wanted. My entire life felt like I was facilitating them being happy while compromising my own.

‘Don’t talk about that, your brother doesn’t like it’
‘Don’t do that now you’ll only annoy your father’

They meant well but it has left me with an awful mess to clean up. My rule book had me loosing any sense of who I was, what I wanted, what made me happy because none of it mattered and sadly it has taken me a long time to find answers to questions most people have always known the answers to.

So if you ask yourself what do you want? Or what would you like? And can’t readily work out the answer, consider whether this is because you are happy and it doesn’t matter or because you have put yourself aside for everyone else. Because knowing who you are is as much about knowing what you like or how you feel as it is about answering the what do you want question. For me the rule book said I come last!

This rule book is the little shortcuts as to how to live your life that you don’t feel you need to think about any more. But if you are not as happy as you would like it might be worth questioning a few of these short cuts.

I get scared a lot and spend a great deal of time going over every angle of a decision to be sure I have covered all my bases and then still worrying all the more once I’ve made it. I know I can’t make perfect decisions but I still try. I expect to be questioned to death about why I did something, I expect there will be disapproval and distrust from all sides and so I try to find the answers before I do it. It was my past but these days it’s just a waste of energy and time. That is not to say that I don’t weigh up my decisions, I do, but I sure don’t need to do it anywhere near as much as I did. It is my life and I only really have to answer to myself, even for my poorer decisions.

I can list loads of these little rules, many of which needed altering because these days my life is different to how it was. I can make my own rules but for so long I really just didn’t. I lived as I had seen my family and friends doing and although they worked for them, they weren’t for me.

So how do you spot a rule that needs altering?

Well I started with the things that were causing me pain, or fear, things that made me angry, things that caused large negative emotional responses. I asked myself why was I doing it, did I want to do it, would I feel guilty if I didn’t, would I be more scared if I didn’t. I looked for why I wanted to or felt I should do something and gently looked at how I felt about it. Was I defensive, was I at a loss but had always done it. Did I feel it was expected of me and I really looked into whether I wanted it to be like that anymore or did I want to put up with something anymore? I tried to be kinder to myself and understand what I wanted out of life and what I felt was important.

The simple fact is that changing some of the rules has made my life better because some of them were so out of this world unfair to me it was unbelievable. I never really thought that I had a bad outlook on myself but then it took me a long time to even thing about me I feel it shouldn’t really be that surprising.

So take a look at yours and let me know what you find…

Are your rules kind to yourself or are they unfair to you? Do they need a little change or just scrapping.


I would say that it’s not that easy to find the answers and really if you feel guilty about not doing something then please don’t feel it is easier to just do it than work out if it really is a good one for you. It might be that there are other things involved and a little alteration will be enough.