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booksbroadwaybbc · 6 years ago

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For anyone who hasn't had a chance to crack open Jordan Peterson's "12 Rules for Life: An Antidote To Chaos" - it's packed with a lot of good, non-political stuff. I've tried to summarize it here. via /r/selfimprovement

For anyone who hasn't had a chance to crack open Jordan Peterson's "12 Rules for Life: An Antidote To Chaos" - it's packed with a lot of good, non-political stuff. I've tried to summarize it here.

This is my transcript to a video summary; please forgive any grammatical errors. I also attempted to share this on r/DecidingToBeBetter but for some reason the mods removed it after it got 100+ upvotes :(.

For those of you who haven't heard of Jordan Peterson, he's a psychology professor and clinical psychologist at the University of Toronto. Regardless of your political or moral beliefs and his controversial public persona, his intent is to make people's lives better, and his materials have made mine better, so I figure why not share the gold. Even if some of these rules might not be relevant to you, I think there's a chance that one or two of them could somehow positively impact you.

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The first rule - stand up straight with your shoulder back. This comes from his study of lobsters, interestingly enough. They govern their posture with serotonin. Serotonin is a neurotransmitter that governs status, posture, and emotional regulation in lobsters - just like it does in humans. If a lobster loses a fight, you can coerce it to fight again by giving it antidepressants! If you're on top of the lobster hierarchy then you have high serotonin - you can legitimately mobilize a pinchy, disgruntled bottom lobster upwards into the top of the hierarchy by moderating its levels of serotonin. Human hierarchies are not socio-cultural constructs - they're deeply rooted in biology. Where you lie in the hierarchy is monitored at a deeply instinctual and physiological level by neural structures that were formed hundreds of millions of years ago. And where you lie determines the ratio of positive to negative emotions that you feel. This is why being put down by someone, especially someone in an authoritative position - is so painful. It pokes at the deep physiological thermometer that you have, measuring where you're at, and it messes with the neurochemical systems that regulate your emotions. So you want to present yourself in a way that aligns with our biological indicators of achievement. Stand up straight, occupy some space, open your arms in a display of vulnerability that nonverbally communicates confidence. This actually physically regulates your mood in the same way that smiling makes you feel happy - which some people call faking it until you make it but it's not fake at all, it's just using our bodies to exert some degree of control on the inner workings of our minds and our emotions - postural flexion directly impacts emotional regulation - and others are likely to perceive you as trustworthy and to give you the benefit of the doubt. Part of the universal strategy for success is to confront challenging situations in a vulnerable manner and with confidence and courage.

The second rule is to treat yourself like you're someone that you care about. Jordan talks about the golden rule of "treat others the way you wish to be treated" and how the meaning of that message goes a lot deeper than just the basic virtuous trait of kindness. You ought to treat others the way you would treat yourself if you were your child. That means you wouldn't just be smiling and positive and agreeable about everything in an avoidance of all negative emotion - that's pathetic. You'd want your kid to grow through challenging situations and constructive criticism, you'd tell him when he was wrong. Jordan explores the reasons why when we get a prescription for our pet, we're religious about its administration and we care for it. But for ourselves, 30% don't fill prescriptions and 50% that do don't take them properly. Why don't we care about ourselves? Jordan says it's because you often decide to dislike people based on something that they did and then based on that tiny slice of awareness of who they are, you embrace this negative feeling towards them. But you don't just know a tiny slice of yourself - you know everything you did and haven't done that you should have so your self-perception is just super prone to negativity because man, I did that bad thing over there and then this other thing and I could have done this but I didn't. So it's easy to let go of things that help you and fall into temptation and malevolence because of this existential question of why something as sorry and wretched as you deserves any care? And the answer is that yeah you're useless and weak and terrible but everyone is and that's what makes us human and the way to correct this underlying, subconscious tendency to let go is through the deliberate and conscious acknowledgement of your need to treat yourself in the same way that you would treat your child. It's the hidden layer of the Golden Rule - the more important one if you ask me because it unleashes, it unlocks the growth mindset. And not only would this make your life better individually, but if you don't do this, you could argue that you make the world a worse place. So we've got the carrots of feeling better and pulling the world up through leading your peers by example and then we've got the sticks of feeling miserable and letting go of the things that are important and dragging everyone else down with us. It's a moral decision, an obligation to take care of yourself to pull your weight within the competence hierarchy that matters the most - humanity. You have a light that you need to bring into the world, and if you don't, nobody else will, and the world gets just a little bit dimmer and the deepest parts of your mind will punish you for that by making you feel bad.

The third rule is to make friends with people who want the best for you. Just like you have a moral responsibility to take care of yourself, you have a moral responsibility to surround yourself with people who help your light shine brighter. Who have the confidence and wisdom to encourage the good things you do and to stop the bad things you do. And that's the measure of a true friend right there - someone who gives you both positive and negative but healthy feedback.

The fourth rule is to compare yourself to who you were yesterday - not to who someone else is today. He talks about the Pareto principle whereby 20% of your employees do 80% of the work, or that 20% of your customers are responsible for 80% of your sales. The rule is that the square of the number of people in any given effort are doing half of the work. This means if you have four people - two people do about half the work. If you have 10 people, about 3 do half the work. If you have 100 people - ten do half the work. If you have 1000 people, 30 of them do half the work. 10K employees - 100 people are doing half the work. This is a pretty ironclad rule. And this is related to the Matthew principle - those who have more get more, those who have less get less. And I can relate this to my physical fitness journey - those who do more can do more, and those who don't do much can do less and less over time. Your body is like a furnace and you have to start small but gradually increase its fuel and its load - keep giving it progressively more things to eat and to do otherwise it atrophies - and I think this applies to the mind too. Another manifestation of this rule can be seen in the fact that the 85 most wealthy people in the world have more money than the bottom 2 billion. Which is why inequality can't be blamed on capitalism; it's a natural phenomenon that would manifest in any economic system. And the point of all this is to say that there are always going to be some people who are better at some things than other people, and that you should be comparing yourself to others to give yourself something to aim towards, but not as a means of measuring your value. That comparison should be for target setting, not for value measuring. Value measuring should occur in the comparison between who you are today vs who you were yesterday. Because in that comparison, you have the authority to set small, achievable goals and compare yourself to someone who's just incrementally, marginally different from you - your yesterday self. Nietche - he who has a why can bear almost any how. What purpose would make all of life's suffering worthwhile to you? And that is a deeply personal thing that you can only decide from introspection, not comparing yourself to others. You can explore it by comparing yourself to others, but you can only decide it by comparing yourself to yesterday.

The fifth rule is do not let your children do anything that makes you dislike them. Carl Jung says that you should pursue that which is meaningful and then you'll encounter that which you least want to encounter - the dark shadow of malevolence that brings the worst qualities out of you. I don’t know how to interpret this other than maybe - if you attach your identity to something that has meaning to you, all other things become secondary, or even worse, obstacles. Including the need for compassion or any degree of empathy. And how in any relationship - if you really want to punish someone, you don't wait until they do something wrong, you wait until they do something right and then you punish them for that because they will decrease the likelihood that they do something good for themselves ever again. But if you want a healthy relationship, you pay close attention, open your damn eyes, and you look for the good things and you praise them with everything you've got. Tell them hey, I saw what you did, I know it took some effort and here's why it means a lot to me. Keep that up. This mindset applies from friendships to families to the workplace to relationships to any form of social interaction and it's another moral obligation. I feel like the more you listen to this the more responsibility you have so stop now if you don't want responsibility. But the takeaway here is that we're all messed up, we all have these shadows to contend with, these dragons within us that make us do nasty things, and when you feel that your mood is becoming unstable and that you're less reasonable, broadcast that so you can clear the room and minimize the risk of hurting others and your relationships with them and then manage your state of emotion back down to earth. This tendency to become unreasonable isn't an illness most of the time it's a human condition - there's nothing wrong with you if you experience it but it's another obligation of yours to learn how to monitor yourself for it, communicate it, and wrestle it back to submission. And that's one of the reasons why forming a solid partnership with someone through marriage to raise children is a good call - because it's the closest thing we have to a guarantee that despite our human ups and downs, we're going to stay in it, and we're going to pull through, for us, for our bond, for our children, and for the world at large. And your job as a parent is to make your child socially desirable by teaching them how to laugh and play and be pleasant and deal with conflict without violence or aggression. You can be sure that you've been a successful parent if, when your kid is 4, other kids want to play with them. That doesn't mean that you're an unsuccessful parent if the opposite is the case. But your job is to discourage behavior that other kids and other adults would dislike, and to encourage behavior that makes people like them. Teach them manners and humor and playfulness and steer them away from stubbornness and public meltdowns and inconsiderate behavior. I really, really like this and it applies to adults too.

The sixth rule is about setting your house in perfect order before you criticize the world. Life can be painful. There's all kinds of stuff to complain about, but if you dwell on it, you will become bitter and tread down a path that will take you to twisted places as evidenced by the diaries and crimes of the Columbine killers. So instead of cursing the tragedy that is life, it's a better and moral decision to act meaningfully. Stop doing bad stuff - lying, disrespecting yourself, eating garbage, saying bad things about other people, etc - stop doing the things that you know to be wrong or that make your feel ashamed. Start doing only those things that you would proudly talk about in public. I like to interpret this as - live your life as if there's a chance that your kids could read a biography of every one of your days. A PG version of those days but an honest version.

The seventh rule is to pursue what is meaningful. Meaning is a defense against the suffering of life. Again - Nietche - he who has a why can bear almost any how. Meaning lets you know when you’re doing the right thing in the right place in life, and he says that the right place somewhere between chaos and order. If you stay firmly ensconced within order, things you understand, then you can’t grow. If you stay within chaos, then you’re lost.

The eighth rule is to tell the truth—or, at least, don't lie. Telling the truth can be hard in the sense that it’s often difficult to know the truth or how to reveal it in a way that minimizes damage. But when we lie, we know we're lying, and telling lies makes you weak. You can feel it, and others can sense it too, even if only subconsciously. Lying disassociates you with meaning and while you might get away with it for a short while it comes at a price that you'll have to pay eventually.

Rule 9: Assume that the person you are listening to might know something you don't. A good conversation consists of you coming out wiser than you went into it. An example is when you get into an argument with your significant other, you want to win, especially if you get angry. If you’re more verbally fluent than the other person then it's easy for you to win but winning shouldn't be the goal unless you want to be living with a pinchy bottom lobster; it's important to recognize that the other person might see something better than you, but they can’t quite articulate it as well. Always listen to not just the words that people say but the message that they're communicating and the reasons why they're communicating it, because there’s a possibility they’re going to tell you something that will prevent you from running headfirst into a brick wall. This is why Peterson says to listen to people even that you don't like. They might try to hurt you, but they will also say true things about yourself that your friends won’t. A great tactical tip here is - when you're having a conversation with someone, whenever they're done speaking, summarize what they said back to them to confirm your understanding. In this way you can condition yourself to become a truly active listener because you'll be talking to people with that sense of 'aw crap I gotta do a book report on this in a minute so I'd better listen up'

Rule 10: Be Precise in Your Speech: There is some integral connection between communication and reality. Language takes chaos and makes it into a ‘thing.’ As an example, imagine going through a rough patch in your life where you can’t quite put your finger on what’s wrong. This mysterious thing that’s bothering you—is it real? Yes, if it’s manifesting itself as physical discomfort. Then you talk about it and give it a name, and then this fuzzy, abstract thing turns into a specific thing. Once named, you can now do something about it. Things that you can't name are far more terrifying than the things that you can name.

This is why Peterson is such a free speech advocate. He wants to bring things out of the realm of the unspeakable. Words have a creative power and you don’t want to create more mark and darkness by imprecise or disallowed speech.

I interpret this as not just about the precise outward distribution of ideas through speech but also as a meditation on the importance of accumulating inward awareness. I'd still be stuck in a cycle of omega-3 deficiency and accumulating financial liabilities and sex addiction and avoidant attachment and toiling away on a hedonistic treadmill if I hadn't picked up some damn books and harvested the language that allows me to think and speak precisely and accurately about the flaws in my choices and behavior.

Rule 11: Don’t bother children when they are skateboarding. This is mainly about risk taking and the embracing of responsibility. We want to positively reinforce the behavior of taking risks because that fundamental deep-seated inclination to do a kickflip dookickey slide down a rail might be stupid as a kid but might also translate to that same kid putting everything on the line for a tech startup that changes the world in a great way, or approaching a girl that he's attracted to and growing immensely from their relationship. Let people take risks and encourage them to as long as they're not too dangerous. If you restrict a child's play, you're essentially restricting the human spirit and the ability of those children to shine bright and we need all the light we can get, especially right now as things are shifting more quickly than ever before on a species level.

Rule 12: Pet a cat when you encounter one on the street. This chapter is all about the unexpected beauty in life and how as much as we need to try and emit light from ourselves, it's also important to keep an eye out for light coming from other sometimes unexpected or mysterious places so we can try to amplify it a bit. When you see a stray cat struggling for life but figuring out how to adapt and how to still roll around in the grass and play with leaves, that's a bit of light right there surrounded by a big bunch of darkness and it's beautiful and you should try to look for that stuff and cultivate it external to your circumstance by maybe petting the cat or just feeling delighted by it, but it's also important to carry this within your own circumstance because no matter how much stress or darkness you're coping with, looking for the beautiful pockets of light might just upgrade the experience from absolute hell to just a manageable tragedy, which, you know, it's worth a shot.

Alright that's about it for Jordan Peterson's 12 Rules for Life: An Antidote to Chaos. As far as my impressions of the book: There were a couple of tearjerky moments and a lot of goosebumps and plenty of moments where I just had to step back and think. I really hate the negative association that "self-help" books get because learning from people like Jordan Peterson is one of the best ways that we have to grow at scale, and there should be nothing but positivity directed towards people who share and consume uplifting, illuminating content like this. It's just nothing short of enlightening and I've got the rules printed out next to my daily routine here now so I have to look at them every day when I wake up. Get the book and if you can't afford it just send me a message and I'll get it for you.

Submitted October 02, 2018 at 05:21PM by flatoutfrazzled via reddit https://ift.tt/2OzoqSw

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