“The great religious and philosophical traditions in the world all have teachings that treating others with the same weight and love with which we regard ourselves is the path to peace and enlightenment.” — Sharon Eubank, “Doing Small Things With Great Love”
As the calendar turns and we step — somewhat hopefully — into a new year, many of us feel the familiar tug toward resolutions. We pledge to exercise more, spend less, declutter our homes and stop spending so much time online. These goals aren’t wrong, but they often distract us from things that have a greater impact on our well-being and happiness: our sense of purpose, our relationships with others, our ability to navigate an increasingly challenging and complex world.
What if instead of focusing on self-improvement alone, we began the year with both an individual and a collective resolution rooted in one of humanity’s oldest moral insights — the Golden Rule?
Jesus’ words, “Do unto others as you would have them do unto you,” are the simplest framing of the Golden Rule, but the idea is far older and far more universal than any single phrasing. In Judaism, Rabbi Hillel summarized the Torah thus: “What is hateful to you, do not do to your neighbor.” In Islam, the Prophet Muhammad taught, “None of you truly believes until he wishes for his brother what he wishes for himself.” In Hinduism, the Mahabharata offers: “Do not to others what you do not wish done to yourself.” Buddhism teaches compassion through a similar lens: “Consider others as yourself.” Its simplest expression might be: “Do unto others as if you were the others.”
Different cultures, different eras, different languages, different traditions — yet the same moral heartbeat.
The Golden Rule is deceptively simple. It doesn’t require logic, advanced theology or philosophical training. Most of all, it doesn’t demand perfection. It asks only that we pause long enough to imagine the experience of another person through the lens of our own hearts and minds and then act accordingly. In a time often defined by urgency, speed and conflict, that pause alone would be revolutionary.
And it’s not just a personal ethic. The Golden Rule has profound implications for how we live together in every sphere of public and personal life.
In politics, the Golden Rule could soften the sharp edges of our political discourse and transactions. It doesn’t require agreement, but it does require a baseline respect. Imagine political debates where candidates speak about opponents the way they’d want to be spoken about. Imagine lawmakers negotiating with the assumption that the other side is made up of human beings with families, fears and hopes, not fools and opportunists. The Golden Rule doesn’t erase conflict, but it can transform the spirit in which conflict unfolds.
In business, the principle is equally powerful. A company that treats employees the way its executives want to be treated tends to foster loyalty and innovation. A business that treats customers with honesty and care earns trust that no marketing budget can buy.
In education, the Golden Rule can shape classrooms. Where educators model empathy, students absorb it not as a rule but as a way of being. When students practice it with one another, bullying decreases and collaboration increases. Schools become not just places of academic instruction but laboratories for citizenship.
And in our personal lives, the Golden Rule can be a daily compass. It can guide how we speak to and about our colleagues, co-workers and family members when we’re frustrated or exhausted, how we respond to strangers online, how we show up for friends in moments of joy or crisis.
Of course, living the Golden Rule is harder than reciting it. It asks us to stretch beyond instinct and impulse, especially when we feel wronged or impatient. It asks us to imagine the inner world of people we don’t understand. It asks us to slow down in a culture that rewards speed.
Beginning the new year with this as a central principle doesn’t require heroism or grand gestures. It can start with pausing to think about the other person as if she or he truly were you: listening more carefully, speaking more gently, giving others the benefit of the doubt and practicing what the English poet William Wordsworth called the “little, nameless, unremembered, acts/Of kindness and of love.”
The Golden Rule endures across religions and centuries because it invites us to consider our shared humanity. If we embraced that invitation, even imperfectly, imagine what kind of year it could be.