Book Ponder

• 12 Rules for Life by Jordan Peterson
• Published: January 16, 2018
• Pages: 409
• Rating: 4/5 Stars
• Read: 11/16/2018 – 11/21/2018 | 4/26/2024 – 5/9/2024

12 Rules For Life: An Antidote to Chaos by Jordan Peterson is a book that provides lessons on how to be a better person and live a more fulfilling life.  Jordan Peterson has been a controversial figure in the past years for his stand on free speech.  Whether you agree with Dr. Peterson’s ideas or not, you can never grow as a person by strictly reading and studying things only you agree with.  It leaves you susceptible to manipulation and occasionally you need to get out of your comfort zone and read something uncomfortable.  I always use the supermarket analogy when reading someone or something you don’t fully agree with.  It’s like going grocery shopping and you only put the things in your cart that you want or are beneficial to you and leave the rest behind.  I’ve read many authors with opposing viewpoints than mine but still went into it with an open mind and gained lessons I would have missed if I let my pride dictate my actions.

The Lessons Learned series is different than normal book reviews.  There are hundreds of great book reviews for 12 Rules for Life, and I feel like I would be wasting your time creating another one.  Instead, I strive to give you the lessons I was able to extract from the book to improve my life and perhaps yours. 

Failure Is Easy, Success Is Hard

Life isn’t fair, it never has been and never will be.  Once you make this clear to yourself, you can begin to shift your mindset to do your best with the hand life has dealt you. You only live this life once, what other choice do you have?  Failure is easy, you don’t have to do anything to fail.  Succeeding requires hard work and dedication.  Many people rather stay at the bottom and complain instead of doing something about it.  It may seem harsh, and this is not the case for everyone, but Jordan Peterson has an excellent quote about the reality of this circumstance.

It is far more likely that a given individual has just decided to reject the path upward, because of its difficulty.

Prioritize Yourself First

I am going to create a scenario for you.  Have you ever taken care of someone important to you, either through an illness or a rough time in their life?  This could be a sick child, grandparent, or friend. The doctor may have prescribed them a lifestyle change or a medication regime and you would be the first person to make sure they were following the doctors’ orders and taking better care of themselves.  You would be the first to hold them accountable.  What about taking care of yourself?  Shouldn’t you prioritize your well-being also?

Jordan Peterson believes that we think other people (especially ones we care about), shouldn’t suffer.  In some cases, people take better care of their sick pets than themselves.  People put themselves down thinking they don’t deserve the same care or are ashamed to be sick.  Your well-being should be your priority and while taking care of people that rely on us is important, how will you be able to do that in the future if you don’t take care of yourself first?

Carry Yourself Well

The way you carry yourself sends signals to your brain that can affect your mood.  If you stand up straight with your shoulders back and walk with a purpose, you feel confident, hopeful, and encouraged.  The greatest achievements in history were most likely not accomplished by men and women who were slouching around, walking with their heads down, and afraid to make eye contact with anyone.  While these actions or skills may not seem as relevant today, our brains are still hard-wired to react to our posture and will adjust our mood and demeanor accordingly to the actions we are doing. 

Just like improving at any skill, carrying yourself well with confidence may feel uncomfortable at first, but will improve if you practice it.  I see this a lot with younger employees who are new to jobs, they are intimidated by senior employees and aren’t accustomed to others being direct and serious with them.  They usually walk around with their head down trying not to make eye contact with anyone to avoid any sort of confrontation.  For the most part, even at a young age, you will gain more respect if you carry yourself well while showing confidence and determination, instead of shying away.  If you struggle with this start small by attempting to not look down at the ground when walking past others, you don’t have to make eye contact or start a conversation, but it will become noticeable if every time you pass by someone you stare at your feet.  If this feels too uncomfortable start by doing it in places where you don’t know anyone personally, like the supermarket, or just doing errands in general.  You will be fun to be around and become more respected if you carry yourself well.

Automatize the Simple Things

Your brain is the most powerful tool on earth, yet the valuable resources of the brain are constantly being used by menial tasks that are better delegated to tools and systems.  One example is memorization, a simple note-taking app or notebook can do a much better job at remembering things than your brain.  Thinking critically and deeply? That’s something your brain excels at, and a notebook doesn’t. The easiest way to automatize your life is to apply it to the things you repeat every day.  Your morning routine should be automatized by having your clothes laid out the night before, your shoes in the same spot, your toothbrush, in the same spot, and your keys, wallet, and phone in the same location so that your morning becomes a methodical routine that runs in the background instead of a chaotic rush out the door that starts your day off on the wrong foot.  You can’t perform your best work when you’re trying to remember if you put on deodorant before you left the house.

Continue Striving

Our body and mind are designed to always have something you’re working towards.  Younger people deal with this less as growing up and starting your life usually keeps you preoccupied enough to be striving towards something.  As we get older, and life slows down you begin to lose that purpose in life.  I saw this frequently when coworkers would retire and six months later you would hear they passed away.  They seemed perfectly fine when they were showing up to work every day, but once they retired with no purpose, they just sat around doing nothing.  Human nature is designed for us to continue striving, when we stop having purpose, we begin to perish and decay.  No matter what stage in life you are in, remember that with the mind and body, you use it, or you lose it.  Stay active and give yourself a purpose mentally and physically. 

Be Present with Your Kids

Your kids are constantly giving you opportunities to be involved in their lives.  They ask you questions that you may find annoying or repetitive but it’s important to them.  They may constantly ask you to throw the ball around or do some activity together but you are always too busy, yet they see you glued to your phone all the time.  Then when your kids are teenagers or young adults you are shocked why they don’t come to you for advice or tell you about their problems.  When they are starting their own lives, you are offended that they don’t visit more often or bring your grandkids around, but why would they?  Think of the friends you had that never responded to text messages or were always too busy to hang out, eventually, you stopped trying right? Your kids will do the same thing with you. You chose other things over them for their entire childhood and made them feel like raising them was a chore.  Phone calls, text messages, emails, and errands, will always be there, but their childhood will not.  Enjoy it while it lasts, be present whenever possible, and say yes, a little more, it will reap the benefits in the long run.  Next time your kid gives you their undivided attention, return yours to them also.

Trust, but Verify

Ronald Reagan’s “trust, but verify” quote is still as effective today because humans are not perfect.  Our best friend can have a lapse in judgment and break our trust, your spouse can fall out of love and break a vow.  There are many circumstances where people we thought we could trust in our lives can fail us, and that’s because human beings are flawed.  Never trust anyone completely.  This isn’t saying to never let anyone in your life get close to you, just don’t trust in any one thing completely, and always be cautious.   You may trust your best friend, but that doesn’t mean he should have access to your bank account.  This is an extreme case, but you get the point.  Jordan Petersons quote says it best,

Friendly dogs can still bite. Old and trusted friends can still deceive

Embrace Your Uniqueness

Every person is unique, you must make the decisions that most benefit you, never decide because it’s what everyone else is doing.

Be cautious when you’re comparing yourself to others. You’re a singular being, once you’re an adult. You have your own particular, specific problems—financial, intimate, psychological, and otherwise.

Jordan Peterson

You follow the same workout regime as your neighbor, yet you are seeing different results because you are unique.  You and your classmate study just as hard for the same exam yet you are getting A’s and they are getting C’s because you are unique.  We all learn, adapt, and face adversity in our way.  Don’t compare yourself in every aspect or expect the same result in everything you do.  Extract lessons from others but apply them uniquely to your circumstances.

As important as not copying others is, not worrying about what others are doing is just as important.  Everyone is on their own journey, and I promise you no one cares about what you are doing as much as you think.  They all have their problems and challenges they are facing, once you can embrace this you can begin to make progress in your life. 

Make Progress Everyday

I’ve heard it time and time again, especially if you are working towards something you aren’t naturally gifted at.  Make progress every day, no matter how small it is, just show up every day and do something that makes you better or moves you closer to your goals.  Small wins every day over a long enough timescale, will produce big victories.  Many great people in history weren’t naturally good at what they succeeded in, but they learned early on that showing up every day and putting in the work gave them an advantage even against others who were naturally gifted.  If you are one of the lucky few who is naturally gifted, then combining it with showing up every day will make you unstoppable.  Jordan Peterson says,

Compare yourself to who you were yesterday, not to who someone else today.

We are all on a different part of our journey, and the worst thing you can do is to compare yourself to others.  Analyzing others is helpful to gain insights and tips but in the end, this is your journey, and you will have to go about it in your unique way.  Your only focus should be trying to be better than you from yesterday.

Comparing yourself to others, especially those who are farther along the path than you, is counterproductive, but we also need to show humility to those who are behind us.  Have urgency and ambition in what you are striving for but also maintain modesty and humility. 

Making progress every day will feel difficult on the hard days, that’s why when things get tough, we need to make a detailed plan of attack instead of just winging it.  A structure can bring peace to the chaos caused by difficulty.  Jordan Peterson says,

You must determine where you are going in your life, because you cannot get there unless you move in that direction.  Random wandering will not move you forward.  It will instead disappoint and frustrate you and make you anxious and unhappy and hard to get along with (and then resentful, and then vengeful, and then worse).

If you have structure and a plan, it will keep you grounded and less affected by outside circumstances. 

Clean Up Your Life

Jordan Peterson tells us that sometimes we must follow our gut feeling and that most of the time we know what we are doing is wrong, yet we fail to acknowledge it.

Start to stop doing what you know to be wrong. Start stopping today. Don’t waste time questioning how you know that what you’re doing is wrong, if you are certain that it is. Inopportune questioning can confuse, without enlightening, as well as deflecting you from action. You can know that something is wrong or right without knowing why.

You can read all the self-help books you want, watch all the motivational videos on YouTube, and listen to the best podcasts, but deep down you know it all comes down to you.  Perhaps not down to specifics but in general terms, you know what you need to do to change your life.  You know the bad habits you must quit; you know the people that bring you down, and you know what you really want, you just have to find the willpower to do it.  Jordan Peterson tells his readers to start small when beginning to clean up their lives and to have a tough conversation with themselves.

Consider your circumstances. Start small. Have you taken full advantage of the opportunities offered to you? Are you working hard on your career, or even your job, or are you letting bitterness and resentment hold you back and drag you down? Have you made peace with your brother? Are you treating your spouse and your children with dignity and respect? Do you have habits that are destroying your health and well-being? Are you truly shouldering your responsibilities? Have you said what you need to say to your friends and family members? Are there things that you could do, that you know you could do, that would make things around you better? Have you cleaned up your life?

Some of us have people who care enough about us to tell us the hard truths, but most people won’t do that.  That’s why you need to be honest with yourself and tell it how it is so you can begin to truly clean up your life.  If you always sugarcoat, and remain afraid of the truth, you will never make the progress you need.

Get Yourself in Order First

I’ve written before on When to Take a Stand  and the importance of trusting your judgment once you know you are reliable, but it continues to be a difficult subject.  It is important to take a stand in what you believe in but how do you know what you believe in is right?  Taking a stand is dangerous when later you realize you were wrong, you can damage your reputation and more.  Some lessons I gained from this book on this topic were to get your house in order first before trying to enact judgment on others.  It’s easy for us to sit back and judge what everyone else does while ignoring our flaws.  Jordan Peterson says,

If you cannot bring peace to your household, how dare you try to rule a city?

Before you are quick to judge others, make sure you have yourself in order first.  But how do you know you are reliable enough to trust your judgment?  This requires intense self-awareness and an examination of your past decisions.  If you are someone that has consistently made bad decisions in your life perhaps it’s time to step back from judgment and continue to work on yourself first.  If you feel like you have a good track record and people look to you for mentorship and guidance on decision-making, then most likely you are seen as reliable to others and can make good judgment calls.  Don’t go too far in either direction though, just because you’ve made some bad decisions in your life doesn’t mean that all your thoughts and beliefs are wrong, and on the other end if you believe you are reliable, be modest about it, there’s always a chance you might be wrong in the future, and you won’t even know it until it’s too late. 

The Negative Snowball Effect

Outside of it already being a bad thing, dishonesty is a compound effect.  When we tell one lie, sometime down the line we must tell another lie to cover that one.  Before we know it, we have built a web of false stories and lies to uphold our image before it all comes crashing down.  This same issue comes up with saying “no”.  When you look back at some of the most tragic moments in history like the Holocaust, world wars, and genocides, you wonder how people let it get to that point.  When you dig a little deeper into the history books you notice that it’s a chain reaction of people not being able to say no when it needed to be said, and before you know it there was no one to say no when it mattered.  Jordan Peterson explains it this way,

If you say no to your boss, or your spouse, or your mother, when it needs to be said, then you transform yourself into someone who can say no when it needs to be said. If you say yes when no needs to be said, however, you transform yourself into someone who can only say yes, even when it is very clearly time to say no. If you ever wonder how perfectly ordinary, decent people could find themselves doing the terrible things the gulag camp guards did, you now have your answer. By the time no seriously needed to be said, there was no one left capable of saying it.

If you can’t say no when the risk is low, then you won’t be able to say it when it truly matters.  This is why you need to practice saying no to people.  This doesn’t mean being rude and there’s usually a right way to go about it.  At work, it helps to be known as a hard and reliable worker, because when you say no people will believe that there is a good reason, not because you are lazy.  If you have a reputation for slacking off and doing the bare minimum then when you try to stand your ground and say no, no one will take you seriously. 

When people have difficulty saying no it usually is accompanied by lying instead.  The lies that are told to cover previous lies will eventually run out of places to hide, and you will either face being exposed to who you are or resort to doing terrible things to keep your lies hidden.  This is why honesty and the ability to say no are paramount.

True Wisdom Is in Humility

The reason why people who believe they are always the smartest person in the room stop growing is because they think they have nothing to gain from others.  While it may be true that you may be the most knowledgeable person in the room, there is always wisdom to be gained from the least expected places.  A personal story of mine on this topic is from an elderly man I ran into while waiting for my junior college class to start.  I was surprised to see someone his age wasting his time on a college course and thought he could be doing better things with his time than going to school.  I could have discarded the conversation he initiated with me but on that day, being open-minded gave me a life lesson that it may have taken me many more years to obtain.  He taught me the value of being a lifelong learner.

Peterson says that humility was one of the reasons Socrates is remembered so fondly.

It is for this reason that the priestess of the Delphic Oracle in ancient Greece spoke most highly of Socrates, who always sought the truth. She described him as the wisest living man, because he knew that what he knew was nothing. Assume that the person you are listening to might know something you don’t.

Next time you find yourself having a conversation with someone, be open-minded that they might know something you don’t.  Always be open to learning opportunities from the least expected places.

Be the One People Rely On

Most families have that person who everyone turns to during hard times.  Whether it’s for help during a rough financial patch or someone the family rallies to when there’s a death in the family.  If you had someone like this growing up, then you know the importance of it and how having a stable presence in the family can go a long way.  That’s why it’s important to try to be this person for your own family when you grow up or be the first in your family if it’s lacking this individual.  Reiterating some of the statements from before, the characteristics to be this person can be achieved by following many of the previous lessons mentioned, especially cleaning up your life and getting yourself in order.  Be strong in the face of death.  Prepare and make yourself comfortable around it.  Be the one others can rely on in times of suffering.

Face Your Problems Head On

Peterson believes one of the biggest mistakes you can make is shying away from challenges.  If you retreat and hide from your problems they won’t get solved and will only be harder to tackle when you have no choice but to face them.  If there’s something difficult in your life, face it head-on.  Why hide from it while it continues to get stronger?  Be the aggressor.  There is stability in knowing.  Let’s use one of the most common fears people have, the fear of having a disease or illness that alters their lives.  They don’t go to the doctor, they try to ignore the symptoms, hoping they will go away on their own, while they are crippled with the anxiety of “what if”.  The better course of action would be to face the problem head-on, if you find out nothing is wrong with you, you can move on with your life worry-free.  If on the rare occasion, the worst-case scenario is true, at least know you can make a plan of attack to overcome it, or plan to live what life you have left the best way you can. There is no benefit in being in denial. 

On the other side of facing your problems head-on, try not to be bitter about life.  If we are constantly looking for problems we will find them, try your best to look at the bright side, and have gratitude for the things that are going well in your life.  Sometimes all you do is focus on the bad. 

What shall I do with the world?  Conduct myself as if Being is more valuable than Non-Being. Act so that you are not made bitter and corrupt by the tragedy of existence.

Learn From Your Mistakes So You Don’t Repeat Them

In all the books I have read, one common theme constantly resurfaces itself: the power of writing things down.  Whether it be ideas, thoughts, or just things to remember, externalizing these things from your brain, frees up resources for the important things and helps keep our minds at ease.  Peterson says,

Note your errors. Articulate them. Strive to correct them. That is how you discover the meaning of your life.

A new practice I’ve added to my commonplace book is to write down my mistakes.  It allows me to reflect on them and not repeat them.  It’s also a great reminder when you go back to read your old journal entries and see that perhaps something you are dealing with today, you already faced a few years ago, and find strategies to overcome it.  I also go back and read the mistakes I made and realize I no longer make them, showing how much I’ve grown as a person.  Get in the habit of writing things down. 

Be Respectful and Show Gratitude

The final lesson I gained from this book is to be respectful and show gratitude to all those who came before us.  Not everyone in history was a great person but they all went through similar, if not greater struggles than we did.  Many people in our past made great sacrifices to give us the lives we live today and just because things they did may not fit with the norms of today, we must remember that they did their best in the time and place they were in, and it’s easy to judge from a distance without knowing what it was like to be there in that time.  Some of the things done in history were unforgivable and these are not the things I’m speaking of but a couple hundred years in the future perhaps civilization will be perfected in such a way that they will judge all our actions with tooth and comb, but they won’t know what it was like living in our time.  So, I just leave you with the message to be grateful and respectful of what we have today.  Many people suffered greatly for what we take for granted today.  Try to pass it forward and leave this world a better place than how we found it.

Final Thoughts

While Dr. Jordan Peterson is a controversial figure, I don’t think anything in this book is pushing any sort of harmful agenda.  Like I said in the introduction to this post, be open to reading out of your comfort zone take what’s valuable, and leave the rest behind.  I enjoyed this book and think it’s much stronger than the sequel. 

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