Rules are important .... & .... following them is equally important !
Most people think that rules stop them from living an easy and comfortable life or progress faster, but quite on the contrary, rules do not!
The problem is that it's the human nature to think subjectively and not objectively. Imagine yourself driving your car and have to commute a 10 km distance to get to your work everyday but there are no traffic lights at the city junctions or no speed limits etc. I can't even imagine when you get to work in the first place let alone arriving safely. Therefore, rules are good for us, although most people don't like them.
This might be quite a social life but the same is true for our individual lives too.
It's extremely important to have rules for ourselves too (or what people usually call 'principles'). We may not like them but we MUST have them. They might stop us from doing things that we like, from thing we're comfortable with but we must have them.
A problem in having rules at individual level is that we can not see the effect of not having them instantly; It's not like crossing the red light and having an accident, rather the effect would appear much later in life or maybe even after one is no more. Absence of them has the potential of influencing generations after us and at times we can not even imagine the depth.
A major part of most of the couples' conflicts and eventually separation is that they don't have principles. If they knew that their partners follow a specific line in their relationship, their trust in each other would never fade.
So.... lets have principles for our lives and respect them no matter what people might think about them and follow them at all times.
Cheers!
Iman
