C-19: The Platinum Rule

We’ve gotten through a week of changing social norms, learning new ways to communicate, and have stayed home with our people and pets A LOT.

First: go, us! The collective social distancing and isolation can keep the numbers of infections down and protect lots of people.

Second, I want to talk about The Platinum Rule and invite us all to use it at points during the next week in particular.

The Golden Rule is to do to others what you would like for others to do to you. Sounds pretty great and generous.

For the sake of the times, we will assume these two are partners who are social distancing together at their home.

I learned about The Platinum Rule in a training last year about supporting trans and non-binary people. The Platinum Rule says to do to other what they would like done to them. For example, when a person tells you their pronouns or the name they are now using, it is better to use The Platinum Rule because of the marked psychological distress or safety issues that can arise from that not complying with their requests. If you apply The Golden Rule, you could rationalize that you wouldn’t care what pronouns are used or that it is easier for you to say the previous name (or dead name), so you might not make the effort to validate the other person’s needs. The Platinum Rule focuses more on empathy and understanding the needs of others through their eyes.

We can pull out The Platinum Rule during the COVID-19 pandemic as well. We can all do this by pausing, asking others about their needs, deciding to get over ourselves to respect the other person, and then putting this new information into practice.
Here are a few hypothetical examples:

• A mail carrier is delivering a package to your home and asks you to stay over 6 feet away instead of coming up to them to get their package. You may not feel concerned, but you pause to hear their request and think of how many homes they go to and how they are trying to limit their exposure to the virus while continuing to work.

• You and your roommate enjoy watching scary movies together. You see that Netflix has dropped several new scary movies and mention watching them to your roommate. Your roommate declines and asks to watch a rom-com. You can pause, wonder why your roommate is acting differently, and choose to ask what is going on for them that is causing the change in preferences. Your roommate might say that they are pretty tense right now and that scary movies no longer sound like fun. Even though you are disappointed, you can hear your roommate’s needs right now and watch a different genre of movie.

• Your extroverted friend is calling a lot and you are trying to do more solitary activities, as you are more introverted. Instead of learning into being annoyed, you can ask your friend about how they are doing and how you can best be there for them, while still getting your others stuff done.

I invite you to keep The Platinum Rule in mind and practice it a few times in the next week. You will not be able to use it all of the time because you are a human with fluctuations in needs and patience. Hopefully, someone else will be using The Platinum Rule when you are not able to.

See you tomorrow.