Golden Rule

To be successful for the semester

Everybody wants to know the secret of success. What is it? Extraordinary ability, money, or fame?

However, there are more important things in being successful, that is, being understood by close ones, accepted and even loved by all. We know it is true success.

You have probably heard 'the Golden Rule' that secular people noticed and named it first. Actually it does not matter who found it first. It is the rule that we should keep all the time to be successful.

Jesus says it in the gospel, "Do to others whatever you would have them do to you"(Mt 7:12).

What if we do to students whatever we would have them do to us?

What if we do to co-workers whatever we would have them do to us?

What if we do to friends whatever we would have them do to us?

If we practice the golden rule in our relationships, the success will follow.

Some may wonder if we can ever be changed for the good of others. It might be against human nature deeply rooted in self-centeredness.

From the beginning of this Lent, I have kept a word: ascesis.

Ascesis is the spiritual discipline that Pope Francis has suggested for the faithful in this Lent. 

Ascesis is my daily cross, self-discipline and abstinence from what is harmful to me. Ascesis is my golden rule that I want to practice this semester. 

If you choose and practice your own ascesis, that would make you successful in the end of the semester.

Lent is the time of challenge, change and grow. Let us take the golden rule into our life in practicing ascesis. This is the law and the prophets.