30. Duties Fit the People in Your Life

Your duties are not free-floating. They are fitted to the people in your life. Change the relationship and the duty changes with it.

Duties are measured by relationships.

Is someone your father? Then you owe him care, and yielding in all things, and patient hearing of his scoldings and his corrections.

"He is a bad father," you say.

Were you then linked by nature only to a good father? No. You were linked to a father.

"My brother is unjust."

Then keep your own position in relation to him. Do not look at what he does.

Look at what you must do to keep your own power of choice in line with nature.

Another person will not hurt you unless you choose to be hurt. You will be hurt when you decide you have been hurt.

In this way, from the idea of a neighbor, a fellow citizen, a commanding officer, you will find the matching duty, if you train yourself to think about these relationships.

What this means. Your job in any relationship starts with you, not with the other person. Keep your own side of it clean, whatever theirs looks like.