Everybody gets to run their own life

We have gone round and round on what actually sits underneath this whole motto, and we keep landing in the same place.

Everybody gets to run their own life.

That is it. That is the load bearing wall.

Try it on almost anything

Think of the last genuinely shitty thing you watched somebody do. Not annoying. Shitty.

We will bet you it was somebody deciding they got a vote in a life that was not theirs.

How that person dresses. Who they love. What they believe or do not. What they do with their own body, their own money, their own weekend, their own name. Whether they are doing enough, fast enough, in the order somebody else had in mind.

It almost always breaks at that exact seam.

The uncomfortable half

Here is where it gets less fun, because this one does not only point outward.

If everybody runs their own life, then people are allowed to make calls you think are wrong. Not just the harmless ones. The ones that make you want to grab them by the shoulders.

You can say your piece. Once, honestly, with love. You can tell somebody you are worried. That is not encroaching, that is caring, and there is a real difference.

But after you have said it, they still get to decide. And if you keep pushing, at some point you have stopped helping and started trying to drive.

Where it actually ends

The line is not fuzzy and it is not a matter of opinion. It is the point where your choice starts making somebody else’s choice for them.

Play your music loud in your own house. Sure!!
Play it at 2am through a shared wall. Now it is not just yours.
Believe whatever you want about how a person should live. Absolutely.
Write it into a rule they have to follow. Different thing entirely.

Most of us are pretty good at spotting this when it is done TO us. We are all considerably worse at spotting it when we are the one doing it, for reasons we consider extremely good.

Why we keep coming back to it

Because it makes the motto do actual work.

“Don’t be shitty” sounds like it means be nice. It does not, quite. Nice is a tone. You can be perfectly pleasant while steamrolling somebody.

What it actually means is: let people be people. Give them the same room to run their own life that you would want, and that you would fight for if somebody tried to take it from you.

Everything else is details. 🖤