Rule #10
- Beki Lantos
- 12 minutes ago
- 6 min read
George Washington’s tenth rule of civility reads:
When you sit down, keep your feet firm and even, without putting
one of the other or crossing them.
At first glance, this feels… oddly specific.
Not “be kind.”
Not “tell the truth.”
Not even “don’t spit in the fire.”
No.
This one is simply: Sit properly.
Which raises several immediate questions.
First, was George quietly judging everyone’s posture?
Second, was this rule directed mainly at men? Because somewhere in my mental museum of historical manners, I’m fairly certain women were crossing their ankles delicately in drawing rooms while fainting artistically on velvet furniture. (Though I may be confusing centuries. History tends to blur when corsets are involved.)
And third, the real question, why would this matter enough to become a rule of civility?
Because Washington wasn’t writing a furniture manual. He was writing about how a person carries themselves in the presence of others. And suddenly, this tiny instruction about feet doesn’t feel tiny at all.
The Literal Meaning: Stillness, Symmetry, and Composure
Let’s start with the historical layer.
In the 18th century, posture wasn’t just about comfort. It was about character. How you stood, walked, bowed, or sat communicated discipline, self-control, attentiveness, and respect.
Crossing your legs casually, slouching, or sprawling signaled something else entirely: distraction, arrogance, laziness, disregard for company.
To “keep your feet firm and even” meant: Sit upright. Stay composed. Be present. Don’t lounge like you’ve emotionally clocked out.
It wasn’t about stiffness.
It was about intentional presence.
And when you look at it that way… it starts to feel surprisingly modern.
Are We Talking About Feet or Attention?
Because here’s what keeps nagging at me about this rule:
Washington may have been describing posture, but what he was really pointing toward was attention.
Think about the difference between someone sitting upright, engaged, listening, and someone slouched, fidgeting, legs tangled, eyes drifting elsewhere.
One posture says, I’m here with you. The other says, My body is here, but the rest of me has already left. And maybe that’s the deeper meaning hiding inside Rule #10.
Not just where your feet are, but where your presence is.
The Modern Translation: Sitting Without Being There
Today, of course, posture has changed.
We sit curled into couches, folded over laptops, hunched toward glowing rectangles, half-reclined in chairs designed by people who clearly gave up. Crossed legs are the least of our worries.
What’s more striking is how often we are physically seated but mentally absent.
We sit with phones in hand, attention divided, thoughts elsewhere, and conversations half-heard.
We sit beside people we know and love, while scrolling strangers we don’t.
We attend meetings, classes, dinners, even quiet moments at home without ever fully arriving.
In that sense, Rule #10 might be whispering something far more relevant than posture advice: Sit like you mean to be here.
Presence Is a Form of Respect
Across these rules, a pattern keeps emerging.
Civility, in Washington’s world, wasn’t primarily about manners. It was about how your inner state affects shared space.
Rule #10: don’t disappear while sitting right in front of someone.
Because presence is one of the clearest signs of respect we can offer.
When someone gives you their full attention, no phone, no drifting, no impatience, it feels unmistakable.
It feels like you matter. Like this moment matters. As if I’m choosing to be here with you.
And the opposite is just as loud.
Crossed Legs, Crossed Eras
My instinct about women crossing their ankles is interesting. I looked it up and I wasn’t entirely wrong.
In later etiquette traditions (especially Victorian and early 20th century), women were indeed taught to sit with ankles crossed, knees together, posture upright, and movement restrained.
But Washington’s earlier rule seems less about gendered modesty and more about balanced composure.
Feet “firm and even” suggests stability, grounded mess, symmetry, attentiveness. In other words, don’t sprawl, don’t fidget, don’t signal that you’d rather be anywhere else.
It’s less about decorum and more about dignity.
Firm feet is often interpreted as staying present in the moment - no daydreaming, no dilly-dallying. And that interpretation, or translation, feels emotionally true, even if it’s not strictly historical. And sometimes the emotional truth of an old rule is more important than the literal one. It feels less like etiquette, and more like a philosophy of living.
We Live in an Age of Perpetual Elsewhere
Maybe Rule #10 hits differently now because we are living through something Washington never could have imagined: constant distraction.
We are always reachable, notified, updated, entertained, and pulled away. Our feet may be still, but our minds are constantly sprinting.
And the cost of that perpetual elsewhere is subtle but real. We miss moments. We dilute conversations. We weaken connection. We forget how to arrive fully in our own lives.
Rule #10, read gently, feels almost like an antidote:
Be where your body is.
Let your attention land.
Sit in your life instead of hovering above it.
No Rigidity. Groundedness.
Like many of these rules, this one risks sounding rigid if read coldly.
But when you strip away the stiffness, what remains isn’t control.
It’s groundedness.
Keeping your feet firm isn’t about perfection.
It’s about stability in a shared moment.
And stability - emotional, physical, relational - is something our world quietly aches for.
So Many Rules… About the Same Thing?
By the time we reach Rule #10, a curious pattern starts to emerge.
At first, these rules feel wildly different:
Don’t make unnecessary noise
Don’t dominate the fire
Don’t ruin shared resources
Sit with composure
Different images. Different behaviours. Different centuries.
And yet… the more I sit with them (feet firmly planted, of course), the more they begin to blur together.
Because underneath the specifics, each rule is circling the same quiet center: Presence.
Not just physical presence, but emotional, social, and relational presence.
Let’s look at a few side by side.
Rule #4: Audible Presence
Don’t hum, drum, or create constant noise.
Translation:
Don’t fill shared space with unconscious distraction. Be aware of the atmosphere you create.
Rule #8: Relational Presence
Make room for the last comer. Don’t raise your voice above ordinary.
Translation:
Your feelings and voice matter, but they are not the only ones that matter. Presence must be shared, not seized.
Rule #9: Communal Presence
Don’t spit in the fire or misuse what sustains everyone.
Translation:
Shared things require shared care. Your behaviour shapes whether others can gather safely at all.
Rule #10: Attentive Presence
Keep your feet firm and even when seated.
Translation:
Be where you are. Offer your full attention to the moment and the people in it.
Different rules. Same heartbeat.
Why So Many Rules About Presence?
This is the question that kept nagging at me.
If all of these rules point to presence… why didn’t Washington just write one simple sentence? Something like:
Be mindful of others and fully present when you are with them.
Efficient. Clear. Very modern.
But here’s the thing:
Humans rarely learn from abstractions.
We learn from images.
From repetition.
From concrete, ordinary moments.
You don’t remember a philosophy lecture. You remember the person tapping their foot nonstop during that lecture. The voice that dominated the room. The shared space someone carelessly ruined. The moment someone looked at you and truly listened.
Washington wasn’t writing a theory of presence.
He was building it piece by piece, through everyday behaviour.
Noise. Fire. Feet. Posture. Conversations. Space.
Small things… that quietly shape whether people feel safe, seen, respected, and welcome.
Or not.
Presence Is Simple. Living Is Not.
Maybe that’s why there are so many rules.
Because presence sounds easy - just be here. Just be mindful. Just care about others.
And yet… it’s one of the hardest things we try to do.
We drift. We dominate.
We distract. We take more than we notice.
We sit in rooms without ever arriving.
So Washington keeps circling back, again and again, from different angles, with different metaphors, as if to say… If you forget in one way, perhaps you’ll remember in another.
A Thread Running Through All of Them
By Rule #10, the pattern feels unmistakable.
Civility, in this strange little 18th-century handbook, isn’t really about etiquette, stiffness, manners, or social performance. It’s about something far quieter and far more demanding:
How your presence affects other people’s ability to exist peacefully beside you.
And once you see that thread… you can’t really unsee it.
A Quiet Closing Thought
So Rule #10 isn’t really about feet, posture, crossed legs, or colonial furniture expectations. It’s about something much simpler and harder: Presence.
The kind that says: I am here. I am listening. This moment is worth inhabiting fully.
In a distracted age, that might be one of the most radical forms of civility left.
So, wherever you’re sitting right now - at a table, in a classroom, on a couch, beside someone you love… here’s the gentle invitation hidden inside Washington’s strangely specific rule:
Sit like you mean to be here.
Ⓒ February 2026. Beki Lantos. All Rights Reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, or transmitted in any form by any means without prior written permission of the author.
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