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12 Rules of Life

CLEANUP YOUR ROOM, BUCKO!

Rule 1: Stand up straight with your shoulders back

Points

  • Lobster-human analogy
  • Try to wake up at same time everyday- fat and protein heavy breakfast
  • Feedback Loop - if you look defeated, people will look at you that way; if you straighten up, people will look at you differently

Summary

So, attend carefully to your posture. Quit drooping and hunching around. Put your desires forward, as if you had a right to them- at least the same right as others. Walk tall and gaze forthrightly ahead. Dare to be dangerous. Look for your inspiration to the victorious lobster, with its 350 million years of practical wisdom. Stand up straight, with your shoulders back.

Rule 2: Treat yourself like someone you are responsible for helping

Question

  • It appears that people love their pets more than themselves. How horrible is that?
  • How much shame must exist, for something like that to be true?
  • What could it be about people, that makes them prefer their pets to themselves?

Order vs chaos

Order is when your tax returns are filed, chaos is when you are audited.

Summary

You hate yourself because you know your flaws better than anyone else; you dont know your dogs flaws as well as do yours. Therefore you resent yourself and treat yourself as someone not worthy of your help.

He whose life has a WHY can bear almost any HOW

Once having researched your own individual hell, you could decide against going there or creating that; you could aim elsewhere; in fact you could devote your life to this. That would give you Meaning.

Treat yourself as someone you want to help, NOT happy. A candy makes a child happy, but you will not give him candy all the time, instead you will do what is good for him; and ask him to brush his teeth. Why should you not do this for yourself?

Rule 3: Make friends with people who want the best for you

There wasn't much to do in Fairview, even in the summer. But the winters were worse. Then your friends mattered. More than anything

Why do people chose bad friends?

  • The repetition complusion, sometimes people with low opinion of themselves choose the same sort of company that proved troublesome in the past.
  • Sometimes wanting to rescue someone- it is only right to see the best in people, the highest virtue is the desire to help
    • It is not easy to distinguish between someone truly wanting and needing help; and someone merely exploiting a willing naive helper.
    • Maybe you want to draw attention to the inexhaustible reserves of your compassion and good-will. Or maybe its because it's easier to look virtuous alongside someone truly irresposible.
  • You are associating with people who are bad for you, not because its better for anyone, but because its easier.

Summary

A reciprocal arrangement If you have a friend whose friendship you would not recommend to your son, father or your daughter, why would you have such a friend for yourself? You might say: out of loyalty. Well loyalty != stupidity. Loyalty must be negotiated, fairly and honestly. Friendship is a reciprocal arrangement. You are not morally obliged to support someone who is making the world a worse place.

If you surround yourself with people who support your upward aim, they will not tolerate your cynicism and destructiveness. They will instead encourage you when you do good for yourself and others; and punish when you not. Au contraire, people who are not aiming up will do the opposite. They will get jealous when you do good; or offer a former smoker a cigarette and a former alcoholic a beer. Mostly they are dragging you down because your new improvements cast their faults in an even dimmer light.

Make friends with people who want the best for you.

Rule 4: Compare yourself to who you were yesterday, not to someone else today

  • Our hierarchies of accomplishment are now dizzyingly vertical.
    • Eg.: who cares if you are the prime minister of Canada, when someone else is the president of the United States?
  • The celebrity you admire is a chronic drunk and bigot; is his life truly better than yours?

The internal critic

First, the internal critic selects a single, arbitrary domain (fame, power for example); then it acts as if that domain is the only one that is relevant. Then it contrasts you unfavorably with someone truly stellar in that domain.

The internal critic could help you Take stock, if you and it cooperate. Called upon properly, the internal critic will suggest something you could set in order; which you would set in order.

Aim small- poco a poco..

Set the following goal- by the end of the day, I want things to be a tiny bit better than they were in the morning. Then you ask yourself, "What could I do, that I would do, that would accomplish that, and what small thing would you like as a reward"?

Do that for three years, and your life will be entirely different.

The boss's job example

Imagine you are thinking, 'i want my boss's job', if your boss stubbornly sticks to his post, that will lead you into a state of irritation and disgust. You think, 'I am unhappy, I would be happier if I could just fulfill my ambition'; but then you think further, 'Wait. Maybe I'm not unhappy because I don't have my boss's job. Maybe I am unhappy because I can't stop wanting that job'.

Clearly, 'my plan to get this job is not working. So I will do whatever it takes to make my life better". You don't know what better is right away, but figure it out.

Pay Attention

Ask these three questions of your surroundings:

  • What is it that is bothering me?
  • Can it be fixed?
  • Would I be willing to fix it?

If you answer to any of these questions is no, then look elsewhere-aim lower-search until you can find something you can fix, then fix it. That might be enough for the day.

Summary

You no longer have to be envious, because you no longer know that someone else has it truly better. You no longer have to be frustrated, because you have learned to aim low, and to be patient. You are discovering who you are, and what you want, and what you are willing to do. You are finding that the solutions to your problem have to be tailored to you personally and precisely. You are less concerned with the actions of other people, because you have PLENTY TO DO YOURSELF

Attend to the day, but aim at the highest good.

Rule 5: Do not let your children do anything that makes you dislike them

The non-sleeping son

Example states of a father who has to spend 45 minutes every day to make his son sleep. That is a month and a half for a year. No matter how good the intentions, you will not maintain good relations with someone you fight for a month and a half of a year. Resentment will eventually build.

  • "There are not bad children, only bad adults", is too one sided.
  • All too often, parents want to be their child's friend, and give up respect for it. This is not good. A child will have many friends, but only two parents.

It is an act of responsibility to discipline a child. It is not misbehavior or anger. It is not revenge for a misdeed. It is instead a careful combination of mercy and long-term judgement.

Infants are like blind people, searching for a wall. They have to push forward, and see where the actual boundaries lie

  • How hard can I hit mommy? Till she accepts.
  • Reward your kids when they do something you want them to do. Do NOT reward them, for example when they wake up, for eg. let your son watch a video when he wakes up at the middle of the night.
  • All too often, parents think that a crying child is sad or hurt. That is not true; anger is one of the main reasons for crying.

The case of the non sharing infant

Take the case of an infant girl who does not share. Their parents, to be too nice in front of others, will say its OK. Its not OK. They will then blame her for something else entirely later, which will leave her confused and having learnt nothing.

The time out punishment

Come be with us as soon as you can behave properly

Summary

Five rules

  • Limit the rules
  • Use Minimum Necessary Force
  • Parents should come in pairs
  • Parents should understand their own capacity to be harsh, vengeful, arrogant, resentful, angry and deceitful
  • Parents have a duty to act as proxies for the real world.

Rule 6: Set your house in perfect order before you criticize the world

The columbine shooter

Tells us how and why some mass shootings come be, because the perpetrator hates life itself, and thinks human beings are a race so corrupt, they ought to be exterminated.

Vengeance vs Transformation

People who experience evil may certainly desire to perpetutate it, to pay it forward. But it is also possible to learn good by experiencing evil. Eg. a bullied boy can mimic his tormentors. But he can also learn from his own abuse that it is wrong to push people and make their lives miserable.

Clean your own life

An hurricane is an act of god. But failure to prepare for it is sin.

  • Start small. Have you taken full advantage of the opportunities given to you? Are you working hard on your career or your job, or are you letting resentment and bitterness hold you back?
  • Start to stop doing what you know is WRONG. STOP acting in that particular, despicable manner.

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

Rule 7: Pursue what is meaningful, not what is expedient

Life IS Suffering. So what to do about it?

Simplest, most obvious answer? Live for the moment; lie cheat steal deceive, but don't get caught.
Something better might be attained in the future by giving up something of value in the present
  • The successful among us delay gratification. The successful among us, bargain with the future.
  • If the world you are seeing is NOT the world you want, then maybe it's time to re-examine your values.
Bread is of little use to the man who has betrayed his soul, even if he is starving.

Expedience vs Meaning

Expedience is the following of blind impulse, it is a short term gain. What is expedient only works for the moment.

Meaning is it's mature replacement, meaning emerges when impulses are regulated, organized and unified.

Rule 8: Tell the truth, or atleast don't lie

Manipulate the world

  • You can use words to manipulate into delivering what you want; this is what it means to act politically. It's what everyone does when they want something, and decide to falsify themselves to please and flatter
Example

One forty something client told me that his vision, formulated by his younger self, "I see myself retired, sitting on a tropical beach, drinking margaritas in the sunshine'. That's NOT a plan. That's a travel poster. After eight margaritas, you are only fit to avoid the hangover.

To say no

If you say no to your boss, your spouse, 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 into someone who can only say yes, when clearly no needs to be said.

Conclusion

We can open our eyes and modify where we have necessary and keep things running, or we can pretend that everything is alright, fail to make the necessary repairs, and curse fate when things fall apart

In Paradise, everyone speaks the truth. That's what makes it Paradise.

Rule 9: Assume that the person you are listening to might know something you don't

A listening person

A listening person can reflect the crowd. He can do that without talking. He can do that by merely letting the talking person to listen to himself.

Summarize, '...is that correct?'

Next time you are in a dispute, stop the discussion for a moment and institute this rule. Each person can speak up for himself only after he has first restated the ideas and feelings of the previous speaker accurately, and to that speaker's satisfaction.

The useless conversation

This sort of conversation is where one participant is trying to attain victory for his point of view. During such a conversation,

  • Denigrate or ridicule the viewpoint of anyone holding a contrary position
  • use selective evidence when doing so,
  • Impress the listeners (most of whom already agree) with the validity of his assertions.

Mutual Exploration

Mutual exploration requires,

  • True reciprocity on the part of those listening and speaking.
  • Everyone participating is trying to solve a problem, instead of insisting on the validity of their own positions.
  • All are acting on the premise that they have something to learn.

What you know is NOT enough

You must accept this before you can converse philosophically, instead of convincing, oppressing, dominating or even amusing.

Listen to yourself and to those with you are speaking. Your wisdom them consists not only of what you know, but of the continual search for knowledge, which is the highest form of wisdom. Socrates was described as the wisest living man, because he knew that what he knew was nothing...

Rule 10: Be precise in your speech

When things fall apart and chaos re-emerges, we can
  • Give structure to it, through our speech; or
  • speak carelessly and imprecisely, however things will remain vague

The problem itself MUST be admitted to, as close to the time of its emergence as possible. I am unhappy is a good start, and NOT I have a right to be unhappy

Precision specifies

When something terrible happens, precision is what separates the unique terrible thing that has actually happened, from all the other equally terrible things that might have happened.

What is terrible in actuality often pales in siginificance compared to what is terrible in imagination. GO CONFRONT IT

SAY, this EXACT thing, this is what is making me unhappy. This exact, precise thing is what I want as an alternative. Say what you mean, so you can find out what you mean.

Be precise in your speech.

Rule 11: Do not bother children when they are skateboarding

Something to think..

Jordan says that he can travel in a airplane 25k feet above the air, but he cannot skateboard. Why?

Any hierarchy creates winners and losers..it is a fact.

  • Competence, not power is a prime determiner of status.

The futility of group identity

Group identity can be fractioned right down to the level of the individual. Every person is unique, and not just in a trivial manner. Group identity CANNOT capture that variability.

Assertiveness

If you sacrifice too much for others, you expect rather than ensure reciprocity from others. Note when you start to get resentful towards others for not being as agreeable as you.

When you get resentful..

Confide in someone you trust and Confront the offender.

When confronting someone
  • Do NOT think that 'if they loved, they would know what to do'; thats the voice of resentment.
  • Assume IGNORANCE before MALEVOLENCE.
  • Not even you clearly know what you want, how do you expect the other person to know?!

Rule 12: Pet a cat when you encounter one on the street

Of groups..

People are social, because they like their own group; people are antisocial, because they don't like people from other groups.

To be limited, is to be human

Limitations are often seen as suffering and failings, but that is what makes us human. Being of any reasoanble sort appears to require limitation Eg.: The makers of superman invented Kryptonite to keep the story interesting, and more importantly, realistic

Do not hate life

Hating life, despising life-even for the genuine pain that life inflicts, merely makes the life worse, unbearably worse. There is no genuine protest in that; only the desire to product suffering. THAT IS THE ESSENCE OF EVIL

You are in a WAR, not a BATTLE

Set aside some time to talk and to think about the illness or other crisis and how it should be manager every day. Do not think about it otherwise. You are in a war, not a battle, and a war has many battles. When the sun in shining, and times are good, you can make plans for the next month, and the next year..BUT NOT when your leg is clamped firmly in a crocodile's jaws.

So about cats..

Dogs are like people, they are friends and allies of human beings. Cats, however are their own creatures; they are friendly on their own terms. Maybe when you are going for a walk and your head is spinning, a cat will show up and if you pay attention to it for just fifteen seconds that might make up for all that's bad with life; give a sense of achievement.

CODA

  • In a fight.. When Jordan Peterson and his wife fight, they take a pause and each go to different rooms, and think what did I do wrong?. In an argument you want to win, but when to yourself, you can think over your own flaws --> Rule Number 2

  • Confront the uncertainty of the world voluntarily, and with faith and courage --> Rule Number 1

  • Share with people the things you consider truly important --> Rule Number 8

  • It is neccessary to recognize and accept your insufficiency, so that it can be continually rectified --> Rule Number 4+7

  • You may be blocked in Your progess not because you lack opporunity, but you are too arrogant to make full use of what already lies in front of you ---> Rule Number 6

  • Learn (listen) from the success of your enemies ---> Rule Number 9

  • Strengthen and encourage those who are committed to your care instead of protecting them to the point of weakness. ---> Rule Number 11

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