The pages here keep using two words. A rule, they say, is a condition for worth or safety. If you have read a few, you may have wondered what exactly is being claimed, and why it is those two.
This library does not define the two words beyond how the rules themselves use them.
01
How the rules use worth
Eight of the nine rules are about worth alone, and each one says what it predicts will happen if its condition isn't met. If I stop producing, I'll find out I was never worth anything on my own. If I let someone be upset, it falls apart. If I ask for anything, I'll owe them, and I'll have become a weight.
Each rule names one condition. Under that rule, meeting the condition is what worth depends on.
The fear under each rule says what is at stake, in the rule's own words. Under Output it is that without achievement you don't matter. Under Strong it is that if they see you struggle, you lose the only standing you have. Under Needed it is that without your usefulness there is no reason for you.
Not mattering, losing standing, no reason for you. Those words are the fears' own, and this page adds no definition to them.
02
How the rules use safety
One rule names safety outright. Ahead is about never falling behind or being caught unprepared, and what it says will happen is if I let myself fall behind, it'll hit me before I see it coming. The fear under it is that if you stop managing, something goes wrong again.
The definition the library works from names both: a rule is the condition someone meets to stay safe, worthy, or allowed to belong.
03
Why the word is condition
The claim is a narrow one.
It is only that a person may be acting as though their worth or safety depended on one condition.
The library's definition calls that condition unconscious. It claims nothing more than the word says about where a rule sits or how it works.
04
One example
Two people each work until midnight before a deadline.
For one, the work may be the condition. Under Output the fear is that without achievement you don't matter. That is a rule about worth.
For the other, the late hours may be about not being caught unprepared. That is Ahead, the rule that names safety as well.
Is the problem that you're not producing, or that you're not covered? Not producing is the Output answer. Not covered is the Ahead answer.
A third person at the next desk has a deadline and no rule at all. Other rules could be under the same late night, and from one night there is not enough to tell.
05
What this page does not do
Nothing in this library measures worth.
This page is about how the rules use a word. It does not cover being unsafe where you live.The National Domestic Violence Hotline is 1-800-799-7233. If tonight is an emergency, call or text 988 (US). This library is not that door.
Which condition is running, if any, is what subtraction is for.
How a rule differs from the pattern it produces is on Pattern vs. Rule: What Is the Difference?