Rules

I used to think that, when it came to rules, people fell into two groups quite cleanly.  Those who follow them and those who don’t.

You are either the person who stays seated in your 400 level ballpark seats because that’s the ticket you paid for OR the person who will move up to the 100 level when it’s late in the game and people have emptied out leaving prime seats open.

You are either a rule follower or a rule breaker.

Then I had a conversation with my good friend LouAnn the other day. 

We discussed the possibility that perhaps it’s not such a clear-cut dichotomy, but rather it’s more of a continuum.  A sliding scale if you will.

You are not a rule breaker per se, but a rule bender.

So generally you follow the rules.  You don’t think of yourself as a rule breaker.  But you may bend the rules ever so slightly on occasion.

That led to a discussion around what might be the appropriate occasions to be a rule bender and still fall within good moral values.

How long is the continuum? What constitutes rule bending on the scale and as you progress on this continuum, at what point does it cross to unacceptable rule breaking?  And what about acceptable rule breaking? Some rules can be bad and in need of breaking.

We did not come up with definitive answers to these philosophical questions but after the call I continued to reflect and pondered some possibilities.

For instance, you are supposed to slow down when coming up to a yellow traffic light.  A rule follower will slow down.  A rule bender will perhaps not slow down, keep the same speed and glide through.  A rule bender might even speed up a little bit.  A rule breaker however would be someone who goes through a red light.

Sticking with traffic laws, speed limits is another that comes to mind.  The speed limit on the highway says 70 mph.  A true rule follower does not exceed 70.  A rule bender might know that the cops aren’t going to pull you over if you are doing 75, so yaknow, a little rule bending has you doing 75.  A rule breaker however, says eff you, these traffic laws don’t apply to me and I feel like driving 95 and I will tailgate your ass if you don’t move over and get out of my way.

Seems like the traffic category has a lot of these rule follower/bender/breaker opportunities.  HOV lanes for example.  The sign clearly says there must be 3 people per vehicle.  A rule bender might say to themselves, well, we are 2 people in the car plus a dog, that counts as 3 doesn’t it? Let’s go for it.  A rule breaker is one person in the car who, well, see above.

Someone in your family have a handicap placard for their car? Anyone else in the family use it when that handicap person isn’t present?

Using the handicap bathroom stall?

Using a family discount but you’re not family?

Using the senior citizen discount on NJ Transit but you are two years shy of their age requirement? (Mea culpa, mea culpa, mea maxima culpa).

Watching pirated, bootleg movies or shows?

What about, as noted previously, bad rules? At any given point in time in history there have been bad rules in need of breaking. Slavery, separate but equal, no vote for women, no interracial marriage are some that come to mind. 

So yeah.  Rules.  Not so clear cut actually.  A bit of gray there, if you ask me.  Also just ask these people:

“Rules are for the obedience of fools and the guidance of wise men.” Harry Day

“If you obey all the rules you miss all the fun.” Katherine Hepburn

“The young man knows all the rules, but the old man knows the exceptions.” Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.

“Rules are not necessarily sacred, principles are.” Franklin D. Roosevelt

“If I’d observed all the rules, I’d have never got anywhere.” Marilyn Monroe.

Rules.  Follow them. Bend them. Break them.  All options apply.