HOW TO CONDUCT YOURSELF THIS WEEK

This is an awesome way to not only approach the week, but life in general. It appears they didn’t call Ol’ Alex great for no reason. There are two parts of this to unpack, and they are really not all that different. Let us take a look at them one at a time.

The first part of the quote is to conduct ourselves that all men (people) wish to be our friend. This is an interesting task. When you think of the wide array of people in the world, how can everyone want to be your friend? That is next to impossible. What is possible is to adopt characteristics and live in such a fashion that any decent person would want to associate with us. I like to call it the ‘John Wayne way of living’. In the movies, Mr. Wayne always played an honest, straight forward man. A man who always did his best to do the right thing. How close the real John Wayne was to this character is up for debate, but does not really matter here.

What do you think are some universally admirable characteristics? Honesty for one. Even if you disagree with someone, if they know that you will tell them the truth, they will respect you. Doing our best to be compassionate towards others, especially those we differ with, is one of those traits we should adopt. We never know anyone’s complete story, so we should never assume to judge them. Working to continually improve yourself is another trait that should inspire people to want to associate with you. Everyone admires someone who not only acknowledges their faults, but is actively working to improve upon them. Staying humble and kind. Keeping a positive outlook, even in tough times, allows us to be a light for others. Who wouldn’t want more light in their lives?

The second part can be taken a couple of different ways. “and fear to be our enemies” Does this mean we should threaten and make people fear us? Not at all. Here is how I see it. When you develop the traits above, the world at large will develop a positive outlook on you. Many people will be happy and honored to call themselves your friends. If someone were to talk negatively about such a person, or to attempt to spread gossip about them, who do you think would end up looking bad? It would be the person doing the gossiping about a person that most people hold in high regard. Therefore, the best thing you can do to have people fearing to be your enemy is to be a friend to as many good people as you can.

Adopting this way of living will allow us to chart a course that will end in a life well lived. We will have blessed the lives of many while we are here and our memory will live on long after we are gone.