2026 March 3 Rules and Guidelines

Hi, this is Jim Cranston from 7EveryMinute and 7EveryMinute.com, the podcast and website about reimagining your life. Thanks for joining me to talk about rules and guidelines. So let's get started. If you like what you hear today, please leave a like, subscribe, tell your friends, send me a message.

This week we're going to talk about a few thoughts on rules and guidelines. They sort of perform the same function—they help you do something correctly—but one is required while the other one is optional.

What brought this to mind is that in one of the choirs that I sing with, someone said to me, "If you keep practicing, you won't need that book. You'll just learn the songs." You see, I sing from a book with the notes, so I have the whole tune written out in front of me. Many of the members of this particular choir sing from the books with only the words, or they read off a screen and they don't use any book at all. The comment struck me as kind of interesting for a few different reasons.

First off, whether you follow the tune or not is entirely up to the musicians and the singers. I've been to churches where a tune I know well was sung and the guitarist apparently didn't know some of the chords, so they just sang a different tune. Fair enough. It sounded okay, though I kind of preferred the original.

So the hymnal with the notes isn't a rule book. It's a guide on how to sing a particular song. But the really interesting part isn't whether you're singing the song as written or not. Why should you or should you not follow the melody as written? In my mind, the purpose of following the suggestions in the book is so that everyone can sing the song together, which is both more fun and sounds nicer. If one or some of the people are singing in a different key or different timing, or maybe even a different tune or melody, then either other people can't sing along or it won't sound very good.

So the choice to use the book with the notes isn't because of a lack of skill or a lack of familiarity, but rather to help ensure that everyone can participate. Now, if you're singing alone, such as in a performance, then it's probably just fine to sing the song in your own special way. And indeed, we often hear performers do just that, and it sounds great.

So now we have a decision to make, not just in the choir, but in our everyday interactions. Are we doing something for ourselves, such as that star performer? Or are we doing it where one of the goals is to include other people? And that brings us right into how we manage our thoughts and actions in a society and in our own personal lives.

If we're doing something for ourselves, even something that many people do, it's generally fine to do it in a manner that gives us the best results, even when others choose to do it in a different way. Imagine Taylor Swift singing something in a key where she couldn't reach all the notes. Why would she do that? Instead, she'd probably change the song to something that highlighted her voice and talent.

So even when society says we should or shouldn't do something because of our age, if that doesn't fit the way you live life, then you should probably consider just ignoring that advice and live life to its own fullest. If you want to surf and ride a motorcycle when you're 60 or 70 and you're able to, then by all means, consider doing it.

But what about when you're trying to do things that are more inclusive, such as get-togethers or group activities, especially when multiple generations are together or multiple cultures? Then it's probably worth evaluating your thoughts and actions in the context of the community or the group.

Being older and hopefully wiser doesn't give you the right to criticize or ridicule other people and insist that only you have the right to set the rules to follow, or that only you know the way things really work because you have experience. That doesn't mean giving up your principles or thoughts, but it does suggest that you might want to listen a bit before telling someone else they're wrong or that what they're saying isn't such a big deal.

I hear this a lot in the context of, "Well, what if there's a nuclear war?" And I'm very tempted to say, "Been through it with the Bay of Pigs. We all survived, whatever." But remember, when you look back on that, you had a different perspective of it. And when somebody younger says that now, they're coming from where we were 40 or 50 years ago.

So remember, God and nature gave you two ears and one mouth, so you can listen twice as much as you talk, especially in multi-generational and multicultural situations. It's worth trying to remember what you were like at their age. And when you're in a different cultural situation, another way to be open and accepting is simply to ask them why they feel the way they do.

Frankly, they may not really know, just as when we were younger. There are probably many things that we believed because, well, we were just told to believe them by our peers or older people or whatever. Being interested in someone is the best way to learn about them and learn to know them more personally, and also to learn more about yourself. Because when you expose yourself to new ways of thinking, it causes your brain to work more, to either get those concepts to align with your current thinking or to review your current beliefs and see if they're still correct.

Just that is beneficial for you on many levels, but it also challenges your brain, and that is a great way to improve your brain health. Because the more you use your brain in challenging ways, the greater you'll promote neuroplasticity and the ability to learn and retain new things.

There's also kind of a third category of interaction, and that's where society feels there is no need for discussion because the science is settled. We often hear that on many topics these days. In reality, the science is never settled because if it is, it means a lot of scientists aren't doing their job. Every scientific, medical, engineering fact should always be checked for validity, especially as new information is discovered.

There are numerous breakthroughs that have happened in the past few decades that contradicted known science. But to hear some people talk, when some professional society or government department or political party says something, it's a rule and should apply to everybody. But many of those decisions cross over from group benefit to personal choice, and this is often a very difficult situation for people, especially older adults.

The whole recent rage about doing heavy resistance training to mitigate osteoporosis is a good case in point. Research saying that whole technique of doing heavy resistance training—I can find references back since the 1980s, and that was on a very quick search. It's just assumed in the medical profession, by and large, that as you age, you'll lose bone mass and eventually fall apart. Older adults were actively discouraged from anything but very moderate exercise because of their age.

So if you were still active, you'd be cautioned by your doctor to take it easy. I know I used to get it a lot, even in my forties. That's a case where the group, society, formal western medicine, whatever the group is, has very strong opinions that you as an individual have to be confident in yourself and in following your own path.

To continue the singing analogy, that's where you as a member of a choir have to have the confidence and the knowledge—because you can't just do things like change your medical viewpoints based on nothing. You have to have the confidence and the knowledge to just start singing a harmony line or a counter melody when it's appropriate. You don't necessarily have to explain yourself. You don't have to try and convince other people. Sometimes it's not only okay, but better. Sometimes it's even essential to follow your own path, especially when it comes to your health, and sometimes music.

So to recap, our lives are filled with rules and guidelines, but sometimes we need to pay attention to the difference. Many things commonly presented as rules are really guidelines at best, or historical artifacts at worst. But in most cases, it's also worth taking the time to identify what we're trying to accomplish before breaking any rules or common knowledge.

Is this a situation or circumstance where working as a team is the best choice? Or are we trying to individually perform our best? And sometimes, even when working as a group, the best results can be obtained when we bend the rules slightly to create new and unexpectedly beautiful outcomes.

So that's it for the evening. Tonight's homework is to think about sometime in the past week or couple weeks when you either followed a rule that you didn't really believe in or broke a rule that you simply thought was not beneficial to you. Extra points if you write down some examples and then the reasoning behind it. Was it because the rule didn't work for you, or was it too hard or too easy? Or was it something else? As always, have fun with these and use it as a motivation, not something to beat yourself up with.

So again, that's it for the evening. Remember, one of the best ways to care for yourself is to care for others. You can check out UKR7.com or WCK.org. UKR7.com is for links and ways to help the people of Ukraine. They just went through an extremely difficult winter. It was just a very bad situation, but there are links there. And World Central Kitchen—they work in disaster areas around the world. Those are two big international groups, but there's a lot of local charities who can always help. Even something as simple as just a smile to somebody you meet on the street can change your day for the better in ways you can't even imagine.

So as always, thank you for stopping by. If you found something interesting or useful, please pass it along. Please subscribe and hit that like button. If not, please drop me a comment as to what you'd like to hear. Have a great week. Remember to live the life that you dream of, because that's the path to true contentment. Love and encouragement to everyone. See you next week on 7EveryMinute and 7EveryMinute.com.