If You Act Like One, You'll Be Treated Like One

I recently considered the saying "if you act like one, you'll be treated like one," and while it doesn't hold true 100% of the time, I think it stands as a good rule of thumb in a surprisingly high number of cases. For example, if you act like a decent person, you'll be treated like a decent person, at least by other decent people, whereas if you act like a jerk, you'll be treated like a jerk, at least by those who have a backbone and little to lose. If you want to be treated a certain way, you should act that way, and then other people will be more likely to respond in kind.

I suppose, in a sense, this rule of thumb is a variation of the golden rule. The golden rule says that we should treat others the way we would like to be treated, and this rule of thumb says that people are likely to treat us the way we treat them. It's the same principle, but from a different angle. Personally, this reminds me to try to be a decent person, partly because I simply want to be a decent person, and partly because I would like to be treated like one.