The Rule We Kept After We Forgot Why

There was a reason, once, for the rule — a bad night, a specific failure, a promise made in the aftermath to never let that particular thing happen again. Years passed. The reason faded into something closer to legend than memory, retold badly, missing details, maybe not even entirely true anymore in the telling. But the rule stayed, intact, obeyed out of habit long after anyone could explain what it was protecting against. I think most families and most people carry a few of these — structures still standing with no memory of the ground they were built to hold. Not every inherited rule deserves to be kept. But some of them turn out to be right anyway, for reasons the original reason never even anticipated.