Rules Rule!

Okay, so as a kid, did you ever break the rules? Are you one of those people who think that rules are made to be broken or are you a person who thinks that rules exist keep order in the world?

It has been my experience that people fall into one of these two categories. As you might guess from previous blogs and knowing that I am a plotter, I fall firmly in the latter view of the rules. I think rules exist to help us. If everyone followed the rules then there would be more order in world which would be a good thing, in my opinion.

There are rules for almost everything in our world. Some rules are written and we can study them--traffic rules, for example. Okay they are technically laws, I guess. I don’t know about you, but I studied hard for my driver’s license test. Everyone knows the rules for driving (not to be confused with the Rules of the Road by you Kevin Smith fans). Yet, every day I sit at my desk and watch person after person run the stop sign at my corner. It says “Stop” for heaven's sake. Even if they don't know the traffic rules, one would hope that the drivers can at least READ. I am guessing that the folks who don’t stop fall into the “rules are made to be broken” category. Some rules aren't written--like you should be quiet at the funeral home.

Yesterday in Alabama we had a run-off election. It was the result of the primary elections that we had a bit ago. All day long folks kept asking me to go vote in the Republican Run-off. I kept telling them that I couldn’t because I had voted in the Democrat’s Primary Election. This is a very odd situation because, apparently, the Republicans and the Democrats in Alabama have two different sets of rules governing their Primaries and Run-off elections. WHAT!!! How can there be two sets of rules about one thing? And even more important, which set should I go by? I have to know the rules. In this case, by voting in the Democratic Primary, which is where several local elections were decided since there wasn’t a Republican candidate in the race, I agreed to only vote in the Democratic Run-off. I couldn’t believe the number of people who said to me yesterday, “But who would know if you switched?” The answer to that is, "I would know."

This got me to thinking about all the times that I follow the rules because they are the rules. I mean as an adult it isn’t like the rules' police are gonna swoop down and kick me off the playground. I think it all goes back to personal outlook on the rules.

Are rules made to be broken or to help make your world a better place?