The Silver Rule and The Silver Lining

It's a Thursday night and I'm sitting here at home, warm and cozy with a thunderstorm a-brewing outside. My Thursday Night Run was cool and rainy, and we had to leave the woods about halfway in favor of more stable footing. There's a nice dirt road that brought us most of the way back, so it's not a terrible tradeoff. I was getting a little cranky by the end because I was cold, wet and hungry. But I've got other things to tell you, so come on in and grab a seat.

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The Silver Rule

I got to thinking today that while I live my life by The Golden Rule most of the time, I wouldn't mind a few tweaks. "Do unto others as you would have them do unto you" is fine and dandy when you're trying to win points in the Karmic department, but sometimes it wouldn't hurt for Karma to give a little back. Allow me to explain...

I recently signed up to help build a playground and fitness track at a nearby elementary school. A friend of mine is coordinating the whole thing as part of her company's public service program, and needs volunteers. I'm a nice guy (my e-mail signature reads "Awesome, almost to a fault"), so I told her I'd donate my Saturday, finely tuned skills, jovial character and killer good looks to the cause. Most people stop at just donating their time, but I like to go above and beyond.

Anyway, I got to thinking that I do a lot of time donating when it comes down to it. It seems to me that there should be a Silver Rule that reads something like "Do unto others as they'll probably do unto you." I added the 'probably' clause so it feels somewhat less self-serving when you help others just to have them help you.

Under my Silver Rule, you would still be helping out of the kindness of your heart, but others would probably help you out. I've got a shitload of things around the house that could use, if nothing else, someone else to coordinate everything. I'm not afraid of manual labor, I just don't like all the extra crap that goes along with getting the job up and going. Plus a whole bunch of free labor would be sweet too.

Patent Pending, Old Coot Productions...

Here's my idea: Get a few people together who are handy in a variety of different ways. Someone who needs help doing something would come up to us and say "Yo, I need some help building a shed", and whoever is skilled in estimating jobs would give them a quote. This person would be billed in hours for their job, and would have to help others for that number of hours. In return, they would receive the help they need. Sounds like a killer idea to me.

Of course, my crew and I would have to be bankrolled somehow, so maybe there would be a membership fee or some sort of payment scale for our assistance. It would undoubtedly be cheaper than hiring help, and you'd get to work on all sorts of different projects while earning enough hours to have your job done for you.

... Patent Pending, Old Coot Productions

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Damn it's Rainy

I can't help but notice that it's rainy as hell out. For once I don't have rap music blasting out of the hi-fi, and I can really hear it coming down. In fact, while I was running down the dirt road tonight I took a really large chunk of rain to the chest. Thank God it hit me on the right side, because there's no doubt in my mind it would have stopped my heart in its tracks if it had landed on the left side of my chest.

I know I can't complain about the rain because we had something like 4-5 weeks of unseasonably warm and unseasonably dry weather. However, I just heard it raining in my fireplace, and I'm sure my garage is slowly filling up with water. Plus, I have some little tiny grasses trying to grow and I don't want them drowning (or washing away). My garden turned lawn is starting to green up and I'd like it to get a good foothold before we start having frosts. It needs sunshine if it's going to grow up big and strong.

But the silver lining is that there's thunder and lightning so it's not all bad. Oooh, there's a good one.

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I guess that's all I got for tonight. I'll holler at y'all later. Peace in the Northeast.

Over and Out,
Old Coot