Life's Laws and Rules: #1 PRAISE What's Right, IGNORE What's Wrong

Life's Laws and Rules: #1 PRAISE What's Right, IGNORE What's Wrong

Laws and rules of life and living are unwritten norms which can often affect our daily life much more than written legislation.

A New York Times article which currently ranks at the top of the list of articles most frequently e-mailed to others is Amy Sutherland's quite remarkable NY Times feature in "Modern Love" at Fashion & Style, titled What Shamu Taught Me About a Happy Marriage.

Sutherland, author of Kicked, Bitten and Scratched: Life and Lessons at the Premier School for Exotic Animal Trainers (Viking, June 2006), has observed that human behavior abides by the same rules applied to the training of exotic animals, or, as Sutherland writes:

"The central lesson I learned from exotic animal trainers
is that I should reward behavior I like
and ignore behavior I don't".

The key element of this basic law and rule of life is that we should IGNORE behavior we do not like - rather than criticize it or otherwise draw attention to it.

Exotic animals are taught the most complex forms of behavior using this simple principle, combined with a reward for behavior that is desired.

This principle, according to Sutherland, also works at the human level.

Humans are just a higher state of "exotic animal".

After one has read that article, it is instructive to examine what we view daily as so-called "news of the day", which consists to a great degree of things that have gone wrong, are going wrong, or are about to go wrong.

To what degree does this mirror our life in our homes and in our places of work?

According to Sutherland's observations, by drawing attention to negatives, we AFFIRM the negatives.

The correct strategy is to praise those whose behavior we wish to change when they do what we approve of but not to criticize them if they do what we disapprove of - in other words, hype the stuff that is good, in the news, at home, at work - and ignore the rest, at least as much as practically possible.

The result, according to Sutherland, should be a gradual and inevitable improvement of behavior in the person or persons receiving the praise.