I just read that whole thing, it was beautiful, and for two minutes afterwards everything i looked at had white and black see through lines over top of it.
I just read that whole thing, it was beautiful, and for two minutes afterwards everything i looked at had white and black see through lines over top of it.
What does he mean by don’t be too civilized?
For what i can understand as i have seen his lots of lectures, he meant to say be a monster but a controlled one.
iirc, I think he spoke about this matter when he talked about Harry Potter, as he did break some rules because it was necassary. Or something along those lines.
Would guess its about conformizm and agrreablnes and such.
Don’t you find it ironic that one of his first rules is to speak with precision and you have 3 responses none of which with precise speech lol
Really like.. Imagine who you could be and aim single-mindedly at that!! Providing who we become is for the greater good
I'm thinking about buying his book, but isnt there 12 rules in his book? how come there are 42 here?
The initial 42 were from a Quora post he made a while back. He picked 12 that he thought worked together and put them in the 12 rules for life.
"Do not bother children when they are skateboarding" seems like an oddly specific one
Most people on this sub don’t do any of this. Lol…hypocrites.
A lot of the new MAGAt crowd here really needs the first 2.
I prefer Rule #3: Up yours!
It says don’t be too civilized, meaning you have to have some civilization at least and having a riot and attempted insurrection for losing a election is not it
Up yours
I will up my electoral victory, especially against blatant lies and corruption
Can someone paste it as plain text?
Tell the truth… or at least don’t lie
Do not do things that you hate
Act so that you can tell the truth about how you act
Pursue what is meaningful, not what is expedient
If you have to choose, be the one who does things, instead of the one who is seen to do things
Pay attention
Assume that the person you are listening to might know something you need to know
Listen to them hard enough so that they will share it with you
Plan and work diligently to maintain the romance in your relationships
Be careful who you share good news with
Be careful who you share bad news with
Make at least one thing better every single place you go
Imagine who you could be, and then aim single-mindedly at that
Do not allow yourself to become arrogant or resentful
Try to make one room in your house as beautiful as possible
Compare yourself to who you were yesterday, not to who someone else is today
Work as hard as you possibly can on at least one thing and see what happens
If old memories still make you cry, write them down carefully and completely
Maintain your connections with people
Do not carelessly denigrate social institutions or artistic achievement
Treat yourself as if you were someone that you are responsible for helping
Ask someone to do you a small favour, so that he or she can ask you to do one in the future
Make friends with people who want the best for you
Do not try to rescue someone who does not want to be rescued
And be very careful about rescuing someone who does
Nothing well done is insignificant
Set your house in perfect order before you criticize the world
Dress like the person you want to be
Be precise in your speech
Stand up straight with your shoulders back
Don’t avoid something frightening if it stands in your way – and don’t do unnecessarily dangerous things
Do not let your children do anything that makes you dislike them
Do not transform your wife into a maid
Do not hide unwanted things in the fog
Notice that opportunity lurks where responsibility has been abdicated
Read something written by someone great
Pet a cat when you encounter one on the street
Do not bother children when they are skateboarding
Don’t let bullies get away with it
Write a letter to the government if you see something that needs fixing – and propose a solution
Remember that what you do not yet know is more important than what you already know
Be grateful in spite of your suffering
Jesus thank you, my eyes are sensitive and I have bad eye sight. This was much easier way to read lol.
I do not agree with the statement do not do things that you hate sometimes you have to do things you don't like for the better. Maybe its the definition of hate in the sentence i would like your opinions on the matter
I think it’s more about a pattern. So if you need to work overtime sometimes, almost never, and you hate it, maybe just suck it up. But if it’s the norm, do something about it. That hits closest to his philosophy I guess.
Be careful who you share good news with? I heard JP saying this, but why?
People will take advantage of you or become jealous of you. Don’t let your ego get in the way of your self interest.
Look up how commonly someone wins the lottery and ruins their life and relationships.
Thank you
Anecdote:
When I was a little kid, we lived in a house in town. My grandmother (my dad's mother) owned that house. I won't go into the details of how that arrangement came about, because they're not relevant to the story.
Anyway, my dad worked and my mom didn't. It was a struggle, but we got by, usually just barely. Every time my dad got a raise at work, he'd get excited, thinking he'd have a chance to get ahead, and he'd start "sharing the good news" with people. And every time my grandmother (yes, his very own mother) found out about his raise, she would raise the rent.
Eventually, my parents made it a point to stop telling her (or anyone who might tell her) that he got a raise, and she stopped jacking up the rent.
Maybe his own mother needed the money desperately too?
Changed: her to his
Last time I checked, my dad was a he. I can ask him tomorrow in order to check again if you need confirmation of that.
And no, she didn't. My grandfather (not biological, but still the best grandfather I had growing up) ran a pretty successful business. They weren't rich by any stretch, but they did well enough.
There are other aspects of my dad's mother that I won't go into here, but with knowledge of those aspects, I can say that it was not need that motivated her actions.
I also have a weird family member. My dad. He is always eating the cheapest stuff he can find like: - Stealing apples from farmers trees - Buying expired foods - Eating hard bread - Growing his own food, just to save money - Buying long lasting foods in bulk
I am the opposite, I reather go to the store every other day to get the freshest vegetables. While he is eating the unripe tomatoes nobody wanted.
is this available in other languages?
I see someone made the list widen up till the end. They could've made a nice dick with these sentences, what a wasted opportunity
A good post. You have my thanks. 😎
The single-minded pursuit of who you could be is probably my favourite quote. It's extremely tough to do and few make it to the end, but I bet it's all worth it. It's a noble pursuit in my eyes.
I have faced legitimate difficulty keeping myself grounded. I often become arrogant and resentful; what should I do to make sure I am living these rules rather than just reading and understanding them?
"don't try to rescue someone who does not want to be rescued"
should have heard this one before i tried doing this with my ex. had to just learn it the hard way.
The ‘do not let your children do anything that makes you dislike them’ is really weird and controlling tbh. Seems very poor parenting advice.
Otherwise I mostly agree with his points.
If your own parents don’t like you it’s very unlikely that other people will like you.
No, it's unlikely that people like the parents don't like you. I don't see why a gay atheist would care what his religious parents think of him, or why other people wouldn't like him.
That seems like a lazy generalisation to me.
There are a lot of reasons why people might be estranged or critical of their parents.
A young child is ignorant and not in a position to critic their parents, eventually children grow up, take responsibility for themselves. At that point they have more critical value.
Yeah I’m more thinking of the rule being applied upon adult children.
It makes sense if you are talking about a very young child.
Adult children is an oxymoron. When people are full fledged adults you as a parent have no more sway over them than they alott you.
Have you read that chapter of the book?
The line is a generalization, and therefore an oversimplification, of a much more complicated issue that Peterson explains well.
No I haven’t, I’m sure you’re probably right.
I think it’s just how it’s worded that gets me.
What he means, is guide your children in a direction in a matter that they are decent people.
You love your children, if they make you angry with them, you will tolerate them.
Others will not tolerate your child’s bad behaviour like you will, if unchecked it can lead them to become unlikeable, this makes for a lonely existence.
Raising your children is good parenting, tolerating bad behaviour isn’t.
I agree, I just felt the way the rule is worded was poor. Made it sound like he was advocating controlling behaviour, which would surprise me for obvious reasons.
You have to listen to or read the explanation of the rule. The point is that if you dislike your children, you are not going to care for them properly, which is an idea that most parents would find abhorrent. It would be better to be a little controlling than to be an uncaring parent, but the rule is intended as a roundabout way of making you ask yourself why it is that you dislike whatever action they are doing, and if it is really worth being troubled by. I use this regularly as a lens to view my parenting style when my 5 year old is doing something that annoys me, but is generally harmless, and helps me stifle my initial reaction of "stop doing that".
It makes me a better parent because I think more clearly about what behaviors I should and shouldn't dislike.
"Do not carelessly denigrate social institutions"
Yeah, no. The truth doesn't care how much it's criticized. If a social institution collapses from too much critique and denigration, it doesn't deserve to exist.
"Reality isn't made out of matter, but what matters"
Sentimental bullshit. Reality is hard bound by the rules of physics.
"Don't turn your wife into a made"
How un-Christian of him. Read Ephesians 5 24 Jordan.
You guys think he'll write another book explaining 12 more?
I think he will. He was able to get this during covid times when he had some really horrible medical issues. So I think as part of his rules, he will work hard.
Probably at least 18 more rules?
Did he say he was done with writing rules? I think he's writing short stories, I could be totally wrong. I'll look for the podcast that he spoke about it and hopefully I find it.
He wrote one about order, and one about beyond order. I'm guessing beyond order would refer to chaos? I'd be interested in a book where he focuses on good/evil/metaphysics/nihilism.
I don't think the rules left would give him game to write that😅