RULE TEN … for a Better Way to Live
Beginning today, treat everyone you meet, friend or foe, loved one or stranger, as if they were going to be dead at midnight. Extend to each person, no matter how trivial the contact, all the care and kindness and understanding and love that you can muster, and do it with no thought of any reward. Your life will never be the same again.
Like the rules in any game, all of the rules of life are related to each other. Follow the guidance of one rule and it will lead you to the next, and the next, but now you’re beginning to play the game of life as it should be played.
To live every day as if it’s the only one you will ever have is indeed one of the supreme principles of a happy and successful existence. But here is a companion rule that is just as powerful and productive, and yet, unlike the other, is known to very few people.
While you are living each day as if it’s the only one you’ll ever have, begin treating everyone you meet—your farr your neighbors, your coworkers, strangers, customers, even enemies, if you have any—as if you knew a deep, dark secret about each of them. The secret: that they, too, are living their last day on this earth, and will be dead by midnight!
Now, how do you suppose you would treat everyone you meet today, if you knew that they would be gone forever at day’s end? You know how. With more consideration and care and tenderness and love than you ever have before. And how do you suppose they would react to your kindness? Of course. With more consideration and kindness and cooperation and love than you have ever experienced from others in the past. Continue doing the same, day after day, and what do you suppose your future would be like, if you filled it with that kind of unselfish love? You’re smiling already. You know the answer.
Years ago, whenever authors were sent out on a publicity tour to promote their books on radio, television, and with the press, they were pretty much on their own compared to today, when they are literally taken by the hand from city to city and interview to interview by paid publishers’ representatives in each city. In those “old days” our publishers mailed us airline tickets plus hotel reservations and a schedule of our appearances in each city. It was then the author’s responsibility to get to airports and hotels and to take cabs from interview to interview. If one had seven or eight commitments in a day, which was not uncommon, and the interviews were spread out in time and distance, such as in Los Angeles, it became a supreme challenge of one’s endurance and agility just getting from one appointment to the next, on time.
This memorable day happened in Nashville several years ago while I was on tour. A young black cabbie drove me from my hotel out into the suburbs for an appearance on The Noon Show on WSM-TV. Since the ride took some time, we began to converse, and the driver, whose name, I learned, was Raymond Bright, seemed fascinated by the fact that his fare was going to be on television.
My elaborate printed schedule informed me that this program was live, with a studio audience, and was similar in format to The Tonight Show, even to having its own band and perhaps a singer or two. As we pulled up to the lovely building, my cabbie said loudly, “This here is the best darn station in Nashville!”
Perhaps it was because the rule of treating others with love and care, as if they were going to be dead at midnight, was still fresh in my mind since I had talked about it at length on several programs the day before, but anyway, as I was paying Ray, I asked impulsively, “Have you ever seen them put on a television show?”
“No, sir.”
“Well … if you’ve got an hour or so, and it’s okay if you charge me for your waiting, why don’t you come on in with me and watch me make a fool of myself.”
His eyes opened wide. “You mean it?”
“Sure, and then when it’s over, you can drive me back downtown to the Cokesbury bookstore, where I’m autographing books at one-thirty.”
Raymond leaped back into his cab, turned the yellow flag on his meter up, meaning he wasn’t charging me at all, and jumped out. Inside the station, I introduced my new friend to a surprised Teddy Bart, the host of the show, and Elaine Ganick, the producer, and they led us both into the bright studio where the band was already tuning up. Ray was ushered to a prime seat, down front, and while I went off to confer with Teddy and Elaine on what we were going to talk about, he watched in awe as the band ran through their numbers while the television cameras and boom mikes swept back and forth in final rehearsal.
When the show was over, we raced downtown to the bookstore. After that, I told Ray that I was starved, and he took me to lunch in what he called “my part of town,” and although I was the only white person in the place, the hamburgers were the best I had ever eaten. When it came time to pay, I reached for my wallet, but a strong arm restrained me. Ray was paying, and that was all there was to it. No argument. He drove me to two more radio shows, waited for me, drove me back to my hotel so that I could check out, and then hauled me to the airport.
On the way, as I was beginning to doze in the backseat, I heard his deep voice. “Mr. Og (by then he was calling me what the hosts on the radio shows had been calling me earlier) … Mr. Og, I ain’t never gonna forget this day as long as I live.”
“Why, Ray?”
“Because today, for the first time in my life, I feel important.”
All the way to the airport, every now and then I would see those big brown eyes staring at me in his rearview mirror and hear him repeating, again and again, “You made me feel important!”
At the airport Ray leaped from the cab and brought my luggage to the check-in station. Then I paid him, and he stepped close to me and hugged me—shocking a few onlookers—and there were huge tears rolling down his cheeks.
“I love you, Mr. Og,” he mumbled.
“And I love you too. Ray,” I replied hoarsely.
Dead at midnight. A vision preceding a new way to treat everyone you meet. It’s really easy to do, and what you’ll receive in return can change your life forever. Try it!
RULE TEN … for a Better Way to Live
Beginning today, treat everyone you meet, friend or foe, loved one or stranger, as if they were going to be dead at midnight. Extend to each person, no matter how trivial the contact, all the care and kindness and understanding and love that you can muster, and do it with no thought of any reward. Your life will never be the same again.