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This article conveys the message that you shouldn’t abuse rules that are in your favor.
You’ll find yourself possessing an advantage in certain aspects of life as you flow through it. There will be openings to attack others and gain an advantage over them. When we find ourselves in positions of power and see ways to take advantage of, or defeat others, it’s often hard to fight the urge to follow through.
Laws can be set to protect us, and rules can exist to give as an advantage. Your actions can turn out to be fully acceptable in the legal and professional sense, but the fact that you’re taking advantage of others would still remain.
Though it may seem that taking advantage of technicalities can benefit us, maybe sometimes, the better thing to do is not utilize the advantages you possess.
People Aren’t Worried About Rules, but of the Ones Who Wield Them
The ones before us created the many rules you abide by today. People being born today are thrust into a world tied together by copious amounts of limitations, standards, and regulations. Their lives will be subject to being overlooked and controlled, and they’ll find themselves bound in red tape should they ever step out of line in social scenarios, at work, or in business.
This isn’t inherently a bad thing, as the rules and regulations set around us serve to keep life as fair as we can manage to make it. However, there are times when the parties on either side of a specified rule know of the potential unfair dichotomy it fosters. The ones who are in a position of power will be enticed to take advantage of such rules, and the people they take advantage of will grow ill will toward them.
As you attain and attempt to hold onto your position of power in life, be wary of using technicalities to give yourself an advantage over the ones you lead. Sparing others on these technicalities may provide you more benefit than reaping the rewards they provide.
Allowing others to understand that these advantageous technicalities exist, but that you won’t utilize them, will encourage their faith in a sense of empathy existing within you.
Many individuals find rules that serve to give them a disadvantage in life as unfair, even if they may technically not be. Should you execute actions based on those rules, the ones who are penalized will feel you to be taking advantage of them notwithstanding what the rule-book says.
What Sparing Others Does
Sparing others in such instances encourages you to be considered as being empathetic to their feelings of being in a position of disadvantage. We respect those who spare us in life, and those you spare will be encouraged to move past the technicalities of their own role in your life.
Whether you’re their boss, their partner, or their landlord, the people you spare will also tend to adopt a lenient mentality toward you. They’ll feel a sense of indebtment to you for wielding a certain power but not abusing it. In return, some individuals seek to reward your restraint and empathy.
People will infuse their role in your life with warm emotions rather than merely operating by the specification of their respective roles. Think of sparing others as a step which leads to them developing a certain respect for you which encourages the maintenance of a lengthy relationship.
Be Careful of ‘Unactionable’ Hatred
Let’s assume you were to take advantage of certain technicalities which give you an advantage in life. The people you take advantage of will not be able to reciprocate. Your actions would be fully aligned with the laws and regulations in the setting you’re in.
They’ll feel like their disadvantage in a certain situation has been exposed and pried open. They will feel vulnerable and would be reminded of the power that you wield over them in that context. This will all amount to birthing negative feelings toward you. You can call it hate, disappointment, or a feeling of unfairness.
Most importantly of all, their negative feelings about the situation will not have an outlet. They can either begin to search for technicalities they can take advantage of themselves, or let their disappointment ferment into resentment and then hatred.
Be careful of disappointing people who have no outlet for that disappointment to be expressed. They will begin to search for weaknesses they can pry open for themselves, in an effort to get even in their minds.
An example of this is taking advantage of a technicality in the tenancy laws in your city. The tenants who feel as though you served to exploit them will seek different outlets to enact revenge with. They may begin being reckless with your appliances, smoking on your balcony, and blasting music resulting in complaints from the neighbors.
Even though you may have fully acted within the bounds of the laws in place, the people you implemented those rules on may not care. People are sensitive to perceived lapses in fairness – even if those feelings are unsubstantiated. Our competitive juices bubble when we perceive others to have an unfair advantage over us, and we often yearn to balance the scales.