A
policy is a rule that helps govern varieties of different things.
Governments can have policies,
organizations can have
policies and
restaurants can have policies. Any
group can form its own policies, but something that might be overlooked
is that
individuals can form their own policies.
While it may not seem necessary, personal policies can be
highly
beneficial. The best personal policies take the
potential
indecision out of encounters that might otherwise create a
temporary
confusion. You may already have policies, but might not have
thought of them as such instead just calling them "
rules of
thumb." The problem with not officially labeling a policy as
such is that it has to be redetermined
on the fly and may change
based on the situation. If you take the
time to
think things
through ahead of time, a lot of decisions become much easier.
I have several policies in place that make most of my decision making
trivial. I will never buy anything, or donate anything, to a
telemarketer. My thought being, that I do not wish to encourage
this type of behavior, regardless of
the organization doing the
telemarketing. Without such a policy, I might be inclined to
donate money to organizations that I agree with, thus
don't encourage them them to continue
telemarketing.
Another policy I have is to never make
charitable contributions on
the spot, but to plan them out
privately and donate directly.
This makes it much easier to decide what to do when encountering the
homeless,
salvation army bell
ringers,
kids trying to go on some
trip I don't care about but want me to pay for,
etc. It allows
me to make
meaningful decisions and budget appropriate
amounts to
give to charities that I would like to support. It also
alleviates any guilt I might have felt about not
giving. Now, I
can simply realize that I am adhering to a previously thought out
policy and not being
stingy. I have extended this policy to
include
salespeople who approach me in an attempt to push
me into
buying whatever crap they have that I don't want or need.
Routinely creating, maintaining and adapting personal policies can help
make your life much
simpler. It
removes the decision from the
encounter, giving you the neccessary time to truely think through a
decision. So, create your policies. And, then next time you
encounter such a situation, you can say, "
Sorry, it is against
my
policy."