Rules and more rules

This was the eighth post in blog Defend Yourself!:

April 22, 2008

Rules and more rules

It is true that we already live in a society where there are too many rules. Consult a lawyer and will know that there are millions of legal articles prohibiting or allowing almost everything. After all, we still have social rules and work rules, rules at home and in institutions. Simply we not live without rules.

Rules imply learning. You can not talk about rules without proper implementation. They exist to be fulfilled. So, if we not fulfilled them, we must learn to obey them. Failure usually involves punishment.

A security rule is something subtle and almost transparent. Disobeys them implies something almost pleasurable, because when we disobey them, we get rid of the burden that is respect them day after day, hour after hour, minute after minute. However, we must not forget that they bit hard when we overlook them.

A security rule, a survival rule, does not require a written law to enforce. No one is prohibit to walk at dawn in a bad neighborhood using expensive jewelry and lots of money in your pocket. But almost everyone knows the risks. You break a safety rule and the chance you go punished by error is very large.

 

Because they are hard, the punishments are of course educational. A person who neglects a security rule and suffers some kind of problem for this neglect will be going through an experience almost always painful, violent, traumatic and frightening. This experience will serve as a learning. A normal person who learn a lesson by this method difficult to commit a second mistake.

This is not a widely recommended method, we must admit.

 

If safety rules are even relentless, follow them implies a constant monitoring. This state of constant attention inevitably generates a high level of stress. There is no doubt: much of modern chaos is due to this high level of stress coming from the constant state of alert in which people live. Surviving in a large urban center is not an easy task. Hence, people living in cities are much more nervous and stressed that those who live in quiet and less violent places.

So we live a dilemma: if we observe the safety rules we live under stress. If we do not observe them, sooner or later we will be victims of accidents, violence, aggression or crimes. The condition of the victim will end up generating a burst of stress, and trauma of a bad event will take anyone to a situation of near-paranoia, seeking not to suffer again another bad event.

But there is no doubt. The stress from observing rules is far less than the stress from pick up the pieces after being victimized by a bad experience. So we can only be conformed to this reality and make the task of observing safety rules experience less stressful as possible.

But how?

The answer lies in learning.

 

For now, it is enough to know that a well-learned rule is a rule easier to follow.

If by chance you do not agree with this understanding, talk to any person who has suffered from violence of any kind, whether accidental or criminal. Ask about the trauma and the time this person took to overcome the crisis, if he really overcome in fact.

Learn by pain will always be the worst way of learning.

Written by Rosenvaldo Simoes de Souza at 16h51