The Forgotten Half of the Golden Rule

How an old teaching made me rethink the way I treat myself.

Years ago, I had a habit that many veterinarians will recognize.

On my days off, I would often call the clinic to check on my hospitalized cases. The conversations were usually brief. Had the dog eaten? Was the cat more comfortable? How was my post-op doing? Once I received a reassuring update, I could finally relax and enjoy the rest of my day.

At least that is what I told myself.

Looking back, I realize those calls were about more than just patient care. Part of me believed I wasn’t allowed to fully disconnect until I knew everything was okay. The patients had to be okay. The clients had to be okay. The clinic had to be okay. Only then could I give myself permission to be okay.

I suspect many veterinarians understand exactly what I mean.

Even when we are physically away from work, part of us often remains on duty. We replay difficult cases while walking the dog. We revisit conversations with clients over dinner. We wonder whether we made the right decision, whether we missed something important, or whether a different recommendation might have changed the outcome.

A few weeks ago, I was listening to a church reflection on the Golden Rule: “Love your neighbour as yourself.” I’ve heard those words countless times over the years. Like many people, I always assumed the challenge was learning how to treat other people better.

This time something felt different. Instead of thinking about my neighbours, I found myself thinking about the person I saw in the mirror each morning. One question kept coming back. Where did I learn to be so hard on myself? The question caught me completely off guard.

The more I thought about it, the more uncomfortable I became.

If I treated my neighbours the way I sometimes treated myself, I would not be much of a neighbour. I would expect perfection from them. I would focus more on their mistakes than their successes. I would hold them responsible for outcomes they could not completely control. I would remind them of what went wrong while overlooking everything they did right. Fortunately, I would never do that to another person. The problem was that I had accepted it as normal.

Most of us would never speak to a colleague this way, yet many veterinarians hear some version of these messages every day. As I continued thinking about that church reflection, another realization emerged.

The Golden Rule assumes something I had never really considered. It assumes I know how to treat myself.

If the standard I use for others is the same one I use for myself, then the real issue is not the Golden Rule. It is the standard I've been using all along.

For years, I had spent my energy trying to become a better neighbour without ever asking whether I was being a very good neighbour to myself.

Veterinary medicine attracts conscientious people. We care deeply about our patients and clients. We take our responsibilities seriously and genuinely want to make a difference.

Those qualities are among our greatest strengths, but they can also carry a hidden cost.

Somewhere along the way, many of us begin holding ourselves to standards we would never impose on another veterinarian. We expect ourselves to know more, do more, and control more than any human being reasonably can. We become uncomfortable with mistakes and overly responsible for outcomes that were never entirely ours to control.

Over time, those expectations become so familiar that we stop questioning them. We simply assume this is what being a good veterinarian looks like.

I have seen this pattern repeatedly throughout my career and now in my coaching practice. A veterinarian can successfully manage a full day of appointments, help dozens of patients, support a worried client, and still go home thinking about the one thing that did not go as planned.

If these veterinarians were our colleagues, we would likely respond with compassion. We would remind them that medicine is complicated and uncertainty is part of the profession. We would encourage them to learn what they could and then move forward.

Yet when we’re the veterinarian involved, the conversation changes. The voice in our heads becomes harsher. You should have known better. You should have done more. How could you have missed that?

Many people believe this inner critic is helpful. They assume it keeps them motivated, accountable, and striving to improve. High standards can certainly drive achievement, but the voice that pushes us forward often robs us of peace. It keeps replaying the past instead of learning from it and quietly convinces us that our worth depends on our performance.

There is an important difference between accountability and self-punishment. Accountability asks, what can I learn from this? Self-punishment asks, what is wrong with me? One helps us grow. The other keeps us stuck. The encouraging part is that this way of thinking is not who we are. It is something we have learned.

Somewhere along the way, we learned that mistakes were dangerous. We learned that our value depended on performance. We learned that being hard on ourselves was simply part of being successful and responsible. But what is learned can also be unlearned.

The first step is simply to notice that the way we speak to ourselves may be a habit, not a fact. From there, we can begin questioning beliefs we may have carried for decades. We can learn to hold ourselves accountable without making every mistake a verdict of our worth.

Today, I still care deeply about my patients and the people who trust us with their animals. I still understand the temptation to carry responsibility long after leaving the clinic. What has changed is my understanding that caring and worrying are not the same thing, and that being hard on myself was never the reason I cared so deeply.

For years, I thought my job was to make sure everyone else was okay before I allowed myself to be okay.

Perhaps the harder lesson has been learning that my worth is not determined by perfect outcomes, perfect decisions, or perfect performance. Perhaps the lesson hidden within the Golden Rule is that I was never meant to place myself outside the circle of compassion.

A few questions to reflect on:

How do you typically respond when you make a mistake?

Would you speak to a colleague the way you speak to yourself?

Where did you learn to be so hard on yourself?

What might become possible if you began to question that lesson?

Perhaps the neighbour you have neglected for far too long is yourself.

Dr.Bill