It's easy to tell others what to do. We all imagine the world would be vastly improved if everybody else would only do as we say.
It's hard to change one's self — to fight bad habits, to choose to act at all times with reason and virtue and charity and honor, in accordance with one's own highest goals.
But paradoxically, one's self is the only person whom any of us can directly affect. And teaching by example is the only real way to show how to live properly. How wise is it then to prescribe regimes for others that we aren't willing to endure — to cook and serve dishes for others that we aren't eager to eat ourselves?
Thursday, June 17, 1999 at 20:30:29 (EDT) = 1999-06-17
(see ExempliGratia)
This final comment reminds one of the Golden Rule, "Do unto others as you would have them do unto you." I read of one alternate version of this rule, which is a inverse of the above. "Do not do unto others as you would not have them do unto you".
RadRob - October 10th
(correlates: OnOneFoot, NaturalPhilosophy, Comments on HereBeDragons, ...)