Summary

Psychologist Jordan Peterson lays out 12 rules for life. Most importantly, life is about striding the line between order and chaos - know who you are and where you’re going. Shared behavioral and cultural expectations / values are what enables humanity to function and cooperate - driving the trend towards secularism.

Key Takeaways

• Consider how core values project a world view, especially if the world you see is not what you want
• “Assume ignorance before malevolence”.* *Assume others ideas are also well thought out and be open to change
• Seek transformation by striding the line between order and chaos (maintain vs create, safe vs discovery, P vs PC)
• Keep goals / ambitions less concrete and abstract to allow exploration
• “Bad laws drive out respect for good laws”. As a leader, limit rules and use minimum effective punishment

Notes

12 Rules for Life

1. Exude confidence and happiness
2. Take care of and respect yourself
3. Find friends who want what’s best for you
4. Compare only to your yesterday self
5. Have your children follow society’s rules
6. Focus only on what you can control
7. Pursue what is meaningful, not expedient
8. Tell the truth, or at least don’t lie
9. Assume others know something you don’t
10. Be precise in your speech
11. Take risks
12. Take time to appreciate what’s good in life

Overture

• Shared behavioral and cultural expectations / values are what enables humanity to function and cooperate
• Conflict arises from differences in values
• Trend to secularism to reduce conflict
• Order: Male, predictable, world, maintain, status quo, control, tidy, peace, safe
• Chaos: Feminine, unknown, underworld, creation, discovery, erratic, dangerous
• Rules are for following the fine line between order and chaos (transforming)

1: Exude confidence and happiness

• Dominance hierarchies are a long-standing, evolved, innate feature of society
• Anxiety, heart rate: positive feedback loop
• Anger + aggression valuable for resisting oppression, speaking truth, persistence
• Body language powerful indicator of status, mood so stand shoulders back and smile

2: Take care of and respect yourself

• Order vs chaos applies to everything
• Even hemispherical structure of brain hints at fundamental order and chaos
• We are aware of our own flaws more than anyone, so see ourselves as less worthy
• We all deserve respect, matter to others, some role to play in unfolding world destiny
• Morally obliged to take care of yourself
• Know where you’re going (your future)
• “He whose life has a why can bare almost any how” - Fredrick Niches

3: Find friends who want what’s best for you

• Down is a lot easier than up (social rungs)
• Helping people in need of saving is often futile when they don’t want, embrace help
• Don’t confuse loyalty for stupidity
• Choose people who want better for you, themselves, and for the world

4: Compare only to your yesterday self

• Success and failure is not binary
• Judge yourself by the game you’re playing, if failure than switch games (career etc.)
• Halo effect → highly unfair comparisons
• Improve your situation in some way daily
• Subconscious ignorance of matters that don’t advance goals (eg. ball + gorilla)
• Keep goals / ambitions less concrete and abstract to allow exploration
• Religion is about values, proper behavior

5: Have your children follow society’s rules

• Children too coddled or ignored → bad
• Don’t sacrifice respect for friendship
• Violence, drugs, criminality, laziness, anxiety, depression all easier than their antonyms, default if not told otherwise
• First 4 years most critical socially
• “Bad laws drive out respect for good laws” limit rules, use min effective punishment
• Dislike is a downward spiral to toxic hatred

6: Focus only on what you can control

• Before blaming circumstance for your misfortune, clean up your life
• Focus on what you can control rather than blaming things out of your control

7: Pursue what is meaningful, not expedient

• “There is little between sacrifice and work”
• Work/sacrifice = contract for future rewards
• Stabilization of humanity into the future (ie. future rewards reasonably guaranteed)
• If seen world not what you want, reconsider core values as they project world view*
• “No tree can grow to heaven unless its roots reach down to hell” - C.G. Jung
• Slavery was default, Christianity’s ‘all are equal’ necessary first step to flip morals
• Torment / harm of others just the for sake of suffering is ultimate bad (Nuremberg)
• Diametric opposite of ↑ is ultimate good
• Expedience is short term, narrow, selfish, lies, irresponsible → makes world worse
• Meaning of life is to improve the world

8: Tell the truth, or at least don’t lie

• Ideologues: adopt an uncompromising ideology, view everything through that lens
• Lies lead to weak character, will get mowed down by life, lead to doing terrible things
• Stand up for yourself, be courageous otherwise you’ll train yourself to be passive
• Never lie because committing and normalizing most foul act → slip later

9: Assume others know something you don’t

• Every story / experience is subjective
• “Do what other people do unless you have a very good reason not to”
• Restate, truly understand other persons position to learn - don’t build a straw man
• Assume others ideas / assumptions are also well thought out - be open to change

10: Be precise in your speech

• Layers of life complexity - use appropriate language to describe at desired layer
• Confront budding, prescient problems before they grow to become unmanageable

11: Take risks

• Hierarchies (eg. patriarchy, power) are ancient and evolved, not a social construct
• Upending these hierarchies can have negative consequences
• “Assume ignorance before malevolence”
• Be confrontational, provide a solution rather than just stating the problem
• Sheltering (particularly by mothers) leads to poor social adaptation
• 6 aspects of superiority: income, education, self-confidence, intelligence, dominance, social position
• Risky behavior / pushing the boundaries / becoming hardened is a desirous trait

12: Take time to appreciate what’s good in life

• Life requires having a destination / goals
• When dealing with prolonged adversity, set aside a set time each day to plan and don’t worry about it besides then
• Truly enjoy the little things in life