Rules have always been easy for me to follow. As a teenager, I was not rebellious. I was so concerned with plagiarism in school that I noted if my friends helped me with any assignment.
Now, I’m a teacher, a rule-giver as well as a rule-follower, and one of the major lessons I try to teach is the idea of treating everyone with basic human kindness—to be respectful even to the teacher they are frustrated with, even to the kid they are fighting with, even to an ex-girlfriend or ex-boyfriend. More than math, English, science, or history, this is the most important lesson—a rule worth following.

However, I often contemplate if I am practicing what I teach. I say “please” and “thank you,” I dutifully wish my friends “Happy Birthday,” and I respect the public space of the teachers’ lounge—but am I being kind when it counts?

Jesus commands us to love our neighbors as ourselves. As much as I try to follow his law, I ironically often catch myself being negative towards my neighbors, who I see breaking or bending the rules. I mentally curse the driver who cut me off on the highway. I resent the coworkers who I feel don’t pull their weight with our students. I feel I deserve more than the person next to me because I attended an elite institution and worked harder in my studies.

Jesus asks me to be better than I am so one day I can be great in the kingdom of heaven. He calls all of us to this divine duty. I must be willing to subject myself as a student of God’s instructions to obey this commandment. There is a higher law, greater than any earthly one, I wish to follow. In these days of self-care, self-love, and self-affirmations, I must remember I am not the only one God asks me to love. God turns us toward our neighbors and asks us to love them, too.