Saturday, April 24, 2010

What I learned from being the youngest of five children

Probably the biggest lesson I learned is that people who want to boss you around need to have their heads out of their rears. I never minded getting an order from somebody who knew what they were talking about, at least in the situation - their tone was important and could effect whether I resisted or talked back or not, but if they were right about something needing to be done I did it.

Yes, I assumed the authority to judge whether the thing needed to be done or not. The criteria were:
Could they hurt me?
Could they get away with hurting me?
Would they get in trouble for hurting me?
Would the consequences of their being in trouble roll down to me?
Was the matter at hand objectively important?
How important?
For what?

Each of those deserves greater elaboration, but I have to do other things right now.

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