Do you want to see great transformations within your life? Do you want to be more disciplined, behave accordingly, act with integrity and balance your life? 12 Rules of Life: An Antidote to Chaos by Jordan Peterson, is the answer! Peterson discern that order and chaos are the two earliest forces of the Cosmos. It is like the yang and yin of the famous Taoist symbol: order is the white, masculine serpent and chaos is the black, feminine counterpart. The black dot in the white— and the white in the black—indicate the possibility of transformation: just when things seem secure, the unknown can loom, unexpectedly and large. Chaos is where depression, anxiety, and suffering exist. On the other hand, order where the people around you act according to well understood social norms, and remain predictable and cooperative. He travels broadly, discussing discipline, freedom, adventure and responsibility and making the world’s wisdom into 12 practical and profound rules for life. 12 Rules for life breaking the modern commonplaces of science, faith, and human nature while transforming and creating the mind and spirit of its listeners.
Rule no. 1: Stand up straight with your shoulders back. Social status is important in life outcomes. Higher serotonin level can be an internal mediator of social status. If you feel dominant, more serotonin circulates in your bloodstream. On the other hand, low serotonin is associated with less happiness, more illness, and shorter lifespan. Standing up straight can make you feel dominant, competent and confident that shows you are ready for any responsibilities. The people around you will treat you with respect believing that you’re high on social status. If you kick off the change to appear confidently, people will think that you have a value! However, violating rule no. 1 can make you feel as a low status, and others will treat you accordingly.
Rule no. 2: Treat yourself like someone you are responsible for helping. Treat yourself the way you would treat your children or your pets. Believe that you are worth helping! When sick, go to a doctor. When in pain, seek a comfort. When the lifestyle is unhealthy, change it! This is not an indication of being selfish but instead it is to help yourself to that same category as others you care about. There’s nothing wrong with spoiling yourself once in a while. As what Peterson said, you need to consider your self in the future and start thinking, “what might my life look like if I start caring for myself properly?”
Rule no. 3: Make friends with people who want the best for you. Friendship is a reciprocal arrangement. It’s not a selfish thing to choose people who are good for you. According to Peterson’s Rule 3, while some people may really be capable of improving, some aren’t. People who don’t want to improve can’t be helped. Surrounding yourself with this kind of people can also drag you down! If the relationship is genuine then there is a sincere desire to improve. Always choose people who wants to see you succeed. You will push each other to greater heights. These are the people that won’t tolerate your cynicism and destructiveness and will punish you if you mistreat yourself. Have a friendship that you will advise for other people to have!
Rule no. 4: Compare yourself to who you were yesterday. Consistently bargain with yourself to make small incremental positive changes in your life. It is very fulfilling to see and know gradual improvements with your life no matter how small it is. It will make you more motivated. Peterson encourages us to avoid comparing our progress against others but instead against where we previously had been. Once you truly understand how to let go of your comparison mindset, you will see the world from an entirely different perspective.
Rule no. 5: Do not let your children do anything that makes you dislike him. Children aren’t born ready for life. They need training and feedbacks on how to navigate human society. According to Peterson’s Rule no. 5, children are naturally curious and exploratory and they constantly test limits to figure out where the boundaries are. Parents should give them corrective feedback so that they will understand where the boundary is. Parents are the child’s best shot at teaching society’s rule. Society doesn’t have the patience to teach your child – there are many other well-adjusted, functioning people to spend time on. A bad kid will simply be rejected and left behind.
Rule no. 6: Set your house in perfect order before you criticize the world. You’re responsible with your own misfortune! Do not blame others or the world. Misfortunes are inevitable but there is still potential for redemption, to learn from it and do good despite the circumstances. Despite the suffering you experienced, you have the potential to reverse it and make the world better. If you follow this rule, you can discover more wrongs and can correct it. In that way, you can live a simpler and honorable life.
Rule no. 7: Pursue what is meaningful not what is expedient. Stop doing the things that you know you shouldn’t be doing! Do the things that you know provides your life a meaning. Yes, life is full of suffering but do not take the expedient path! Indulging short-term pleasures and put off long-term commitments is very wrong. It will make your future self, worse off than better. Always do what is good and resist temptations. According to Peterson’s Rule 7, in the most extreme of cases, literally fighting evil is good. Doing good has meaning. When you act with meaning, you will attain more security and strength than would be granted by a short-sighted concern for your own security. Doing good means, you are compensating for the sins of your existence and those of humankind.
Rule no. 8: Tell the truth or at least don’t lie. Avoid deception for whatever reason and avoid self-deception. Everyday, we may lie to the world and get what we want just to avoid pain. We tell lies to appear more competent and gain status. This is us, manipulating the world. According to this rule, you may not be actively misleading other people, but merely lying by omission. This isn’t any better. All the lying may work in the short term, but ultimately you will run into failure. Lying to yourself means betraying yourself and it can weaken your character. Always know how to know the truth by developing your personal truth, act only consistently with your personal truth and keep an open mind to new information and keep adjusting your truth.
Rule no. 9: Assume the person you are listening to might know something you don’t. Let the other person talk! Always go into every conversation trusting that you have something to learn. Do not just wait for the time to respond—actually listen. According to Peterson, people talk because that is how they think. They explore past events, discover how they feel about it, simulate the world, and plan how to act in it. Thus, a lot of people chose to talk to a listener. They organize their brains with conversation. As a listener, you are helping the other person think. True listening is paying attention and accepting what the person has to say. In fact, listening to others can improve our lives—we can learn from them. Address each conversation with the belief that your current knowledge is imperfect. Best conversations happen when all parties listen to each other, tries to solve a problem together, and build to a synthesis greater than what each person started out with.
Rule no. 10: Be precise in your speech. Always define the problems clearly and exactly! Don’t just left a problem unsolved. Instead, put your problems into precise words. Give form to your problem – only then will you be able to deal with it. According to Peterson, once your clearly identify the problem, you will likely realize that you were far more afraid than you should have been, and you now have a specific target to confront. Giving structure to the chaos through specific and accurate speech can make order to the chaos and can develop a new goal and navigate it.
Rule no. 11: Do not bother children when they are skateboarding. Modern society requires gender equality. Gender equality means equal opportunity, rights, and treatment. However, according to Peterson, the idea of complete equality itself is flawed. In general, pursuit of any valued goal produces a hierarchy – some people will be better and some will be worse. In modern well-functioning societies, the hierarchy is based on competence and ability, not power. The author desires a society that is flexible to the idea that boys and men want to prove their competence to people around them. Boys like to skirt at the edge of danger, where life is challenging enough to grow. As what Peterson stated, “Men have to toughen up. They cannot be feminized because “they will become more and more interested in harsh, fascist political ideology.”
Rule no. 12: Pet a cat when you encounter one on the street. Life is tough. The pain that we are going through, is the one that gives meaning to life. Take time to enjoy the little pleasures in life. Pet a cat when you see one on the street. Another response, which only partially mitigates the suffering, is to acknowledge that limitation is critical to making existence meaningful. During the hard times, it is vital to hold on to something sustaining. Let a tragedy be only tragic and not absolute hell!
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