Bending the Rules

Once upon a time there was a little girl. She lived in Eng-Land, a little island floating around the top of the earth. She grew up on a farm, on the top of a hill and spent her life daydreaming.  She had a blessed childhood, spending her days frolicking in the fields, playing on the farm, reading a million books and living with her head in the clouds. When she grew up, she wanted to be a teacher. But part of her also wanted to explore – to learn as much as she could about the world and its people; the world that she was busy exploring every day whilst her head was in her books.

She was a good little girl, and she followed The Rules. She went to school and she got good grades. The Rules were happy. She went to university and she got good grades. The Rules were happy. She got a job as a teacher and she started her career. The Rules were happy. But then, one day, the little girl started to quibble with The Rules. The Rules were saying that she should stay with that job, start her career and settle down. The Rules were saying that she should perhaps buy herself a house and settle down. The Rules were saying that she should maybe find herself a husband, have herself a baby and settle down. But the little girl didn’t want to do any of those things and felt terribly confused. She realised that she wasn’t really all that keen on The Rules.

And so she decided to run away from The Rules for a year or so and she went exploring. She visited a lot of countries all over the world, and she met a lot of people all living a range of very different lives. She learned that, even though many of these people were following The Rules, The Rules were all rather different to the ones that she knew in Eng-Land. The Rules that lived in Peru were very different from The Rules that lived in India or in Guatemala or in Japan. She also met a lot of people who were not following The Rules but that were still living very positive lives. She thought about this for a long time and kept thinking about it when she came back to the little island floating at the top of the earth.

Next, she went to live in Ire-Land for a while, and got herself another job. The Rules were happy – she’s following us at last, they thought, she’s growing up at last, they thought, hoorah! But the little girl still didn’t want to buy a house, she still didn’t want to find a husband, or have a baby, or settle down, and she really didn’t want to grow up. She was just toying with The Rules this time, and she continued to read a lot of books, to meet a lot of people and learn a lot more about the world and what was happening in it.

After a while, she moved back to Eng-Land and got another good job. Hoorah, said The Rules, she’s finally getting it, she’s finally doing it right. (Actually, the little girl was just tricking them again, but she didn’t tell The Rules this for a while). One day, the little girl had a knock on the door: it was The Big C. She wasn’t expecting him, and she hadn’t invited him around. If the little girl is really honest, she was rather annoyed that he came along in the first place, as she knew what he wanted. But she reluctantly invited him in and lived with him for a few years, learning to make a bit of room for him in her life. Although a rather pesky little friend, The Big C taught the little girl several things about life; lessons that perhaps she didn’t realise she was learning at the time.

All the while that the little girl was living in Eng-Land with The Big C, she would dream of adventures. Every summer, the little girl would leave Eng-Land and go off exploring the world, meeting its people and learning about all of the other lives being lived out there. She learned a great deal about herself, a great deal about the world and a great deal about the people in it. The more she travelled, the more she read, the more she learned how many different lives were being lived out there in the world. She learned how different one man is to another when you venture out into the world. She learned how vast the world is, how different we all are on the earth and how many Rules there were living out there. She learned that, in some countries, The Rules were rather selfish; they were all about Me, whereas in other countries The Rules were all about Others. She learned that in some countries, The Rules had stopped caring about the earth and its creatures and were busy churning more and more of it up every day. The little girl didn’t like that. She learned that in some countries, The Rules were written to ensure that the earth was looked after and was cared for by communities that lived together harmoniously. The little girl liked that.

Finally, after a few years, The Big C packed up his bags and left.  The little girl waved him off with a smile. She had always looked on the bright side of life and, when The Big C first came to stay, the little girl didn’t for a second think that she would be leaving with him when he eventually departed. She was an optimist after all. But he did teach her to value her life a little more; to not take it for granted and to make sure she lived as much as she could, in case he or his other friends came calling again one day.

And so our little girl decided to go on another Big Adventure. She packed her bags, said a fond farewell to The Rules of Eng-Land and skipped off for a few years. This time, whilst she was off exploring, she finally realised something. She realised that the reason she loved exploring so much was that it allowed her to run away from The Rules of Eng-Land and be free for a while.  She realised that her life was not going to fit into The Rules of Eng-Land right now and that she didn’t want to keep feeling guilty about that. But she didn’t know what to do. She knew that The Rules wanted her to come back home, to continue her career, to get a house, to find a husband, to have a baby and to settle down. But she didn’t want to do any of those things; maybe not yet, maybe not ever. And she didn’t know how to make people understand that, just because she didn’t want to, it didn’t mean that she was a bad person or that she was a failure, or that she was living her life wrongly. She was just doing it differently; she was just bending The Rules and trying to follow some of her own.

And so one day, the little girl decided to confront The Rules. She sat for a long time, thinking. Who made The Rules and what were they for? She spent a lot of time thinking about this, about The Rules of Eng-Land in particular. She wondered and wondered about them. She knew that people needed to have The Rules around; they helped them to make sense of life. But she also knew that they were totally made up. If we all thought about it for a second, we would see that the reason every country on earth has its own different version of The Rules is because we have all just made them up. There were no right Rules or wrong Rules for how to live life; The Rules were simply all different. And it didn’t really matter if you didn’t follow the set of Rules that you were born into, not really.  At the end of the day, beyond the moral ones, no one checks to see if you’ve followed The Rules properly before they let you through the Golden Gates at the end.  Why not? Because The Rules are not actually real, they are just made up to stop us all from falling off the earth with our confusion about what to do with ourselves every day. Really, when we actually think about it, beyond morality, there are no Rules when it comes to how to live our lives.

The little girl knew how important it was to be a positive person on Earth; to care for those around her, to understand and empathise with people; to treat everyone as equals; to respect the earth and its various inhabitants, and to look after it for the next generation. The little girl had learned, from her adventures and her reading, that these were The Rules that every country on earth worked towards. These were The Rules that actually should matter to everyone on earth. And these really were the Rules that she wanted to follow.

She knew that people would find it odd; that they wanted her to follow The Rules of Eng-Land because they worried about her. She knew that her family and friends wanted her to be happy, and they wanted to make sense of the little girl’s life in their own heads. She knew that some people didn’t like it if you didn’t follow The Rules because they weren’t quite sure what to make of you, and worried you were doing it all wrong. But if they thought about it, beyond morality, there really was no right and no wrong. The little girl was happy, she was living a very good life and she was following the Rules; she was following Her Rules. She didn’t know where she was going and what she was doing next; she didn’t know where she wanted to live or what she wanted to do. But these were exciting thoughts for her, not terrifying and not wrong. She knew that she would always make her life a success because she wanted to live a good life. She knew that she would always be doing good things with her time because that was important to her.  She knew that wherever she went next, she would be working to help other people and to care for the world around her, because this was important to her. She knew that she would always love being in Eng-Land because it was filled with people that she loved. She knew that she could and she would live happily every day, but that she didn’t need The Rules to help her to figure out how to do that. She didn’t need The Rules to tell her where she would go next or what she would be doing next. She had Her Rules, and she knew that they were just as good, just as valid, and just as important as everyone else’s.  And the little girl hoped that someday, if people really thought about it, they would finally see that too.

And so she packed Her Rules up into her rucksack and skipped off happily toward the horizon.