Most of us were taught that doing unto others what you would have them do unto you was the “golden rule.”     The well-known aerobatic pilot Patty Wagstaff once said that for pilots the golden rule was these simple four words:  leave yourself an out.

Pilots get into deep trouble when they forget that rule.   They fly into canyons not knowing what might greet them around the corner (such as a transverse mountain boxing them in).    Or they fly into bad weather because they failed to locate an alternate airport.   Or they fly through a hole in the clouds not knowing what will greet them on the other side of the hole.  Failing to leave oneself an escape route, an alternate way out, can end in disaster.

I used to think of it as slightly awkward when behavior therapists define the goal of therapy as increasing one’s access to reinforcers.   It sounded superficial, but as is often the case, it turned out to be more profound than it sounded.   (A reinforcer, for the uninitiated, is something that will increase or decrease the likelihood of engaging in the behavior that came before it.) Increasing one’s access to reinforcers can be thought of as simply being able to make more effective choices in life.   It means giving yourself as many “outs” as you can.

Andrew Solomon once wrote that every person who suffers from deep depression has one thing in common:  they feel trapped in one way or another.    Whatever their situation, they believe they have no choices left, no “outs.”  When I work with depressed clients, I often try to uncover the source of the trapped feeling, if it isn’t readily apparent.  Helping someone to find an “out” by exploring possibilities that may not have been considered can be a great relief.

Leaving yourself an out works in business negotiations as well.   Every negotiator knows that the first step in negotiating is to not allow oneself to “need” the deal.   One must always be able to visualize and get comfortable with the idea of rejecting the deal altogether. Leave yourself an out.

It may be sheer insecurity or claustrophobia that causes me to check where the exits are every time I go into a movie theater or crowded place.  I even look at the ceiling in elevators and try to discern how to unlatch the top in order to access the roof in the event of getting caught between floors.  Maybe I take aviation’s golden rule too seriously, but then again, experienced aviators have decided to take this idea and plate it with gold.

I have, in my time, met a few pilots who seemed to have merged the two goldens, devolving into the attitude represented by “Do unto others, then run like hell!”  Perhaps it works better to keep them separate but equal:  Do unto others as you would have them do unto you, and always leave yourself an out.  Works for me.