And Find Out

In your personal life and in the spheres over which you have influence, you have to decide how you’re going to punish those who violate your standards of behavior.

You aren’t the arbiter of other people, but you are the arbiter of your life, and so a perfectly just “punishment” is to exclude people from the parts of your life that they disrespect. If you are the manager of employees, you must decide the just and correct ways of reacting to transgressions. If you help oversee a club or organization, likewise. And always, you must keep your personal circle upright.

In considering this, I notice that many people make what I believe to be a tactical error. They often punish the violation of norms with nothing more than a return to the status quo.

Let me paint a hypothetical for you: imagine that in the legal system, the only penalty for stealing something was having to give it back. That’s all. If you rob a bank for a million dollars and you’re caught, the punishment is giving back the million. No jail time, no other punitive measures, just a return to the status quo. What would that likely do to the rate of robberies?

Of course, it would skyrocket. Maybe you’d avoid robbing heavily-armed places where you might get shot, but most places would be prime, easy targets. Apart from personal scruples (which many people lack), there’d be no reason not to at least try, since there would be some chance you’d get away with it and if you didn’t, you’d be no worse off.

Transgression against the code of behavior for any given sphere must be punished by a worse fate than the previous status quo in order for that code to be meaningful.

What does that mean in your personal life? If your friend slanders you behind your back, spreading false, potentially hurtful rumors about you, we might be tempted to accept an apology and “setting the record straight” as an acceptable solution. But that’s a return to the status quo and does nothing to curb future incidences of this behavior. A more appropriate punishment might be removing that person from your circle of friends.

You teach people how to treat you by your responses to their behaviors. Never forget that you have a responsibility to the maintenance of your own life, and that requires discipline – in every sense.