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12 Rules for Life by Jordan Peterson

✍️ My Top 3 Quotes

Too difficult to choose three!

“When you have something to say, silence is a lie.”

“When you decide to learn about your faults, so that they can be rectified, you open a line of communication with the source of all revelatory thought. Maybe that’s the same thing as consulting your conscience. Maybe that’s the same thing, in some manner, as a discussion with God.”

"Meaning happens when that dance has become so intense that all the horrors of the past, all the terrible struggle engaged by all of life and all of humanity to that moment becomes a necessary and worthwhile part of increasingly successful attempt to build something truly mighty and good."

🚀 3 Standout Points

Balancing chaos and order

“Order is not enough. You can’t just be stable, and secure, and unchanging, because there are still vital and important new things to be learned. Nonetheless, chaos can be too much. You can’t long tolerate being swamped and overwhelmed beyond your capacity to cope while you are learning what you still need to know. Thus, you need to place one foot in what you have mastered and understood and the other in what you are currently exploring and mastering. Then you have positioned yourself where the terror of existence is under control and you are secure, but where you are also alert and engaged. That is where there is something new to master and some way that you can be improved. That is where meaning is to be found.”

Life is a constant balance between chaos and order. If you lose yourself to either, it will be hard to find meaning. But learning the art of balancing the two will allow you to create a meaningful path.

Define a vision and direction

“Don’t underestimate the power of vision and direction. These are irresistible forces, able to transform what might appear to be unconquerable obstacles into traversable pathways and expanding opportunities. Strengthen the individual. Start with yourself. Take care with yourself. Define who you are. Refine your personality. Choose you destination and articulate your Being. As the great nineteenth-century German philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche so brilliantly noted, ‘He whose life has a why can bear almost any how’.”

Regardless of where you’re at right now, you can find a way to improve your circumstances. It starts with you, not others. You need to figure out who you are, what you’re about, and what you’re working towards. Defining this will strengthen your being and ability to endure obstacles you face. It will also help set you in motion for succeeding on the path you’re consciously chosen to pursue. 

Be precise in difficult conversations

“You have to consciously define the topic of a conversation, particularly when it is difficult – or it becomes about everything, and everything is too much. This is so frequently why couples cease communicating. Every argument degenerates into every problem that ever emerged in the past, every problem that exists now, and every terrible things that is likely to happen in the future. No one can have a discussion about ‘everything’.”

If you’re frustrated or upset, avoid the tendency to lump the specific situation causing your upset into all of the prior situations you have experienced with a particular person. For example, if your partner does something that irritates you, speak to that specific situation, not to all of the related situations in the past. If you make the irritation about everything in your relationship, you will get nowhere with your communication and fail to solve the problem at hand. Being precise may be harder in the short-term, but it’s the only way to succeed in the the long-run.

 

📒 Summary + Notes

Stand up straight with your shoulders back. Correcting posture boosts confidence and self-esteem, which others notice as well.

Treat yourself like someone you’re responsible for helping. You would do anything for the people you love the most, and that should include you.

Make friends with those who want the best for you. Friends who truly support you will demand the best from you and tell you the truth, while toxic friends will just damage you.

Compare yourself to who you were yesterday and not someone else today. Comparing yourself to others damages your sense of self while working to improve on your past self will fulfill you.

Don’t let your children do anything to make others dislike them.
If you allow your children to engage in behaviors you dislike, you’re setting them up for failure by becoming dislikeable adults.

Put your house in perfect order before you start to criticize the world. Find fulfillment by remedying your own faults and improving yourself daily.

Do what is meaningful and not most expedient. Our brains are wired to find meaning in life no matter how hard the road to get there is, which will give us the most fulfillment.

Tell the truth, or at least don’t lie. Corrupting your own perceptions with lies leads directly to a world of chaos where you cannot rely on yourself or your judgments.

Assume the person you’re listening to knows something you don’t. Living life constantly searching for knowledge from others can only help you achieve a life of meaning.

Be precise in your speech. The more exact you are about who you want to be and what you want, the more likely you are to be successful because you can visualize it with absolute clarity.

Don’t bother children when they’re skateboarding. Encourage your children to take measured risks as a way to practice confronting the chaos of life instead of overprotecting them and hiding from the chaos.

Pet a cat when you encounter one on the street. When chaos in your life is unavoidable, such as personal tragedy, focus on what’s right in front of you for as long as you need to until you have the strength to begin looking farther ahead again.

 

📚 Buy This Book 

12 Rules for Life by Jordan Peterson

 

Bodhi Bones