The Rule of Other People's Need

Chapter 4

This post is a chapter of the book It Ain’t Gonna Lick Itself: Housekeeping In Spite Of It All, by Hanne Blank Boyd.

Click here for the full table of contents.

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Illustration by Elizabeth M. Tamny

There aren’t a lot of Absolute Rules in this book.

This is because you can usually find me right down front in the first pew at the First Church Of The Good Enough Job. Nevertheless, the rule below is absolute and non-negotiable. I call it The Rule Of Other People’s Need.

All human beings have the same basic needs in a big-picture way. That’s the lesson of Maslow’s hierarchy. But not everyone has the same basic needs in a small-picture way.

Everyone needs to have access to adequate food and water to survive. Not everyone is physically capable of eating exactly the same food. A person who has celiac disorder isn’t going to do well no matter how much delicious freshly-baked whole wheat bread you give them to eat. A person who is allergic to peanuts could die from eating what is, on paper, an extremely nutritious and sustainable source of protein, carbohydrates, and fat.

The same thing is true of household baselines. Thus, the rule:

If there is a person in your household whose safety and health requires a more stringent housekeeping baseline than you do, then the only correct baseline for your household is whatever that person needs to be safe and healthy.