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The Golden Rule is one of the few rules I try to live my life by and fail every day trying. I love the simplicity of the Golden Rule, it has a tendency of making me interact happier with others and it makes me feel better about myself as well. It’s true: the rule of treating others as you would want to be treated in their place will ultimately lead to your own happiness.

Let’s say that you apply the Golden Rule in all of your daily interactions with other people, and you help your neighbors, you treat your family with kindness, you go the extra mile for your co-workers, you help a stranger in need.

Now, those actions will without a doubt be good for the people you help and are kind to … but you’ll also notice a strange thing. People will treat you better too, certainly. Beyond that, though, you will find a growing fulfillment in yourself, a belief in yourself, knowledge that you are a good person and a trust in yourself.

I personally can admit that there are strong arguments against the Golden Rule, that there are exceptions and logic arguments that the Golden Rule is taken to the point of extreme and falls apart. But I’m not worried about that stuff. The truth is, living by the Golden Rule on a day-to-day basis, will make you a better person, will make those interact with happier, and will make the community you live in a better place.

Let’s take a look at some everyday tips for living the Golden Rule in your daily life:

Practice understanding. Try to place yourself in the shoes of another person. Any person. Loved ones, co-workers, and people you meet on the street. Really try to understand, to the extent that you can, what it is like to be them, what they are going through, and why they do what they do.

Practice sympathy. Once you can understand another person, and feel what they’re going through, learn to want to end their suffering. When you can, take even a small action to somehow ease their pain in some way.

How would you want to be treated? There a is little twist to the Golden Rule which I believe is overlooked by most people - the Golden Rule doesn’t really mean that you should treat someone else exactly as you’d want them to treat you … it means that you should try to imagine how they want to be treated, and do that. So when you put yourself in their shoes, ask yourself how you think they want to be treated.

Be friendly. When you’re in doubt, follow this tip. It’s usually safe to be friendly towards others. Of course, there are times when others just don’t want someone acting friendly towards them, and you should be sensitive to that. You should also be friendly within the boundaries – it’s not about being friend to some because maybe they fit a certain criteria… Anyone! Who doesn’t like to feel welcome and wanted?

Listen to others. Another weakness: a lot of us want to talk, but very few of us want to listen. And yet, we all want to be listened to. So take the time to actually listen to another person, rather than just wait your turn to talk. It’ll also go a long way to helping you understand others.

——- Personal Note ——-

These everyday tips are not just ordinary tips, they are huge scarifies to a lot of people - living the Golden Rule. And for that reason — not even considering that our island will be a better place if more people live by this rule. I urge you make the Golden Rule a focus of your actions – even if it’s one day at a time and try to live by it to the extent that you can.

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There are lots of people who enjoy keeping busy and even holding down jobs all the way into their old age years. In a recent post I asked the question “When Last Have You Thought About Your Retirement Income?“, I discovered that a large number of people are considering skipping out on retirement altogether and prefer staying employed for a long as they are physically able. My boss is a perfect example – for the past sevens years she’s been planning on retiring.

Yet around Caribbean there also tons of people who just don’t have a choice but to keep on working beyond the age of 60 which is the average age for retirement, simply because they haven’t saved enough for their retirement or didn’t start saving early enough.

Wouldn’t it be great if we could retire on our own terms to pursue the things we’d like do. Taking on a job in our senior years is something that should be voluntary and not a requirement. And though the idea of retirement may be a big change for many people – many prefer to continue working instead of relaxing – retirement is still a goal that everyone one of us should aspire to attain, just so we get to control whatever time we’ve remaining in this world.

For all those who are not workaholics like me and who would like to retire on time, here are some great tips I came across over at TheDigeratiLife.com – a blog which writes about money, personal finance, geeks and cyberspace in the silicon valley.

Start investing early.

This is by far the most important recommendation made to anyone who would like to retire on time. It’s one of the most ubiquitous tips I’ve read about investing, and for good reason: the earlier you start investing, the longer the magical power of compounding can work on your funds, thereby ensuring you a healthy retirement.

Invest with any amount you can afford.

A lot of people make the excuse that they don’t save and invest because they just CAN’T. I know someone who says he just cannot afford opening a retirement account because all of his income goes to supporting his family. Yet he’s a heavy smoker and drives a fairly expensive car that requires some maintenance. With some adjustments and heartfelt effort, he could very well be on his way to building a decent retirement nest egg. Freeing up even just a $100 a month to put in an investment account is really all that it takes to build a simple, diversified investment portfolio.

Avoid procrastination and letting life “take over”.

Let’s face it, thinking about retirement and more generally — financial management — may not be the most exciting thing in the world. We’re faced with distractions on a daily basis and we’re living busy, hectic lives. If you’re like me, you’re constantly wondering where all your time has gone, by the end of the day. So its way too easy and tempting to have our financial matters take a backseat to everything else; but by going along this path, we may eventually find ourselves in our middle age with meager savings. Being more proactive about our finances and taking a more serious look at our long term financial goals should help us avoid this plight.

——- Personal Note ——–
Forget how hard the economy is presently, the early you apply these tips together if whatever ideas you’ve – the better chance you’ll have not to work in your retirement years. Though I believe a lot of people will agree with me – that it will be fun to keep working all the way into grey years. Once you do it on your own terms.

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Too many times I’ve seen, we take criticism as a personal attack, as an insult to who we are. But it’s not. Well, perhaps sometimes it is – there are some people who just love to criticize everything and everyone. But we don’t have to take it that way. Here is a tip, take criticism towards your actions and not towards you as a person. If you do that, you can detach yourself from the emotionally side of criticism and see what should be done to improve.

So many of us handle criticisms (whether it’s constructive or not) as a personal attacks and in turn we attack right back. “I’m not going to let someone talk to me that way,” or how we Dominicans say it “I not going to let someone take their foot on me.” You have to defend yourself, and attack the attacker … right? Especially if this criticism in made in public, a perfect example of public criticism - when someone will post a comment on this blog criticizing something I wrote about or apart of the blog.

Attacking back most of the time is wrong. By attacking the attacker, you are stooping to his level. Even if the person was mean or rude, you don’t have to be the same way. You don’t have to commit the same sins.

Be the better person.

If you can rise above all the insults and attacks, and respond in a calm and positive manner to the meat of the criticism, you will be the better person. And guess what? There are two amazing benefits of this:

• Others will admire you and think better of you for rising above the attack. Especially if you remain positive and actually take the criticism well. This has happened to me, when people actually complimented me on how I handled attacking comments.
• You will feel good about yourself. By participating in personal attacks, we dirty ourselves. But if we can stay above that level, we feel good about who we are. And that’s the most important benefit of all.

How do you stay above the attacks and be the better person? By removing yourself from the criticism, and looking only at the actions criticized. By seeing the positive in the criticism, and trying to improve. By thanking the critic, and by responding with a positive attitude. After you did you will feel good about yourself and the way you acted…trust me.

How do you handle criticism? Please share your tips and suggestions in the comments.

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