Principles, in Principle

Just about everyone favors the principle of "principles." In an ideal world, everyone would live according to enduring principles that applied all the time and that changed only rarely and after careful consideration. In this ideal world, we could anticipate how people would behave—we could trust them, at least to be consistent, over the long haul—and plan accordingly.

I'm sure you've noticed by now that this is not in fact an ideal world. ;-)

Frequently—perhaps even usually—people today espouse principles they claim to live by, but those principles aren't enduring; whenever they turn out to be inconvenient or un-self-serving, exceptions are made or they are modified so that those "principles" (and I use the term advisedly) become utterly situational, inconstant, and unreliable. What I think of as actual principles, most people see more as guidelines, subject to ready modification at the first moment they place unpleasant demands on them.

Those aren't principles, people; they're guidelines.

Guidelines are great, and I have a great many of them. They aren't intended to be principles and I don't pretend they are; I identify them as guidelines because I don't think it's appropriate to be bound to them. I only have a very few principles, but I happily bind myself to them no matter what the circumstances or who they effect because I think they're that important:

• be honest
• be tactful
• acknowledge my own
• faults
• biases
• weaknesses
• be fair

I don't always live fully according to my principles, but I strive to and when I find I've violated one I work assiduously to correct my error. I am vigilant about this; I want to be the kind of person who operates on principle, instead of according to expedience.

I know full well that makes me a rarity in today's society. I'm well aware that it makes me vulnerable to those who are "pragmatic." The unscrupulous will always have an advantage over me, because I have chosen to bind myself to principles while they aren't bound to anything.

I'm fine with that. I'm not responsible for who they are, only for who I am. And I choose to be, to the best of my ability, a person of principle.