12 Rules for Life Book by Jordan Peterson is a triumphant win to introduce Christianity and philosophy into the lives of people who are inundated by the cycle made up of scanty but compounding bad habits that keep them average for life.
About the author
Jordan B Peterson is a Canadian clinical psychologist and a professor of psychology at the University of Toronto but there is more to it because what makes him unique is his communication skills and a youtube channel with hours and hour of lectures where he covers the topics like Religion, Nazi Germany and clinical psychology. He is propagated also through the famous Joe Rogan Podcast where he has contributed 4 appearances already.
Jordan Peterson's new book is split into 12 Rules where he justifies why these rules are the rules of life that a person should be following. The Rules are not something you have not heard of, but Jordan Peterson's argument is unheard of in the modern world and refreshing too.
12 Rules
The book is a simplified and thorough study of books like Crime and Punishment novel by Fyodor Dostoevsky, Modern Man in Search of a Soul Book by Carl Jung and books like Beyond Good and Evil by Friedrich Nietzsche.
As I have mentioned in the beginning the rules are not the main focus if they were you don't need to buy the book but the justification and the evidence Jordan Peterson provides is something so amazing, None has achieved this type of beauty in their work. Let us start with the rules. I won't spoil anything.
This rule is the first one in the book and the most well explained one not only moral justification is provided but also scientific neurological evidence is also presented to the reader by explaining the neurobiology of lobsters, yes lobsters are very very much like humans. A Lobsters neurobiology functions upon the same reward chemicals like ours or to be more precise our body functions like the lobsters as they came before us on the evolutionary ladder. Chemicals like dopamine and serotonin regulate and change our brain affecting our posture and chances of winning.
2. Treat yourself like you are someone you are responsible for helping.
This rule is the most self-help in all of the self-help books ever written but the interesting thing is the reason why we have to remind people to love themselves because people judge themselves too harshly. Jordan explains how mind criticizes itself and eventually stops paying attention to its own well being after it gets in a vicious cycle of thinking how worthless it is and exaggerates its own mistakes. This doesn't mean be nice to yourself on the contrary be harsh and solve the problems you face.
A point to ponder in a world where you can have hundreds of friends and still have no support because people are friends only for their best interests and it's okay but if they don't want the same for you feel free to cut them off.
4. Compare yourself with who you were yesterday,
not with who someone else is today.
This rule is something I don't think needs much explanation but still, the human mind constantly compares itself with others and three things happen that harms you.
- First, you get a sense of pride if the comparison declares you the winner
- Second, envy and resentment if the comparison makes you the loser
- Third, whatever happens, you lose your mental peace and your priceless time in the end.
This rule is for parents who don't want people to dislike their kids. If you dislike your own kids' other people most probably will too, its a rule of thumb not a law that will work in every situation. If you let them do what makes them dislikable then they are going to have a tough social life in the future.
6. Set your house in perfect order before you criticize the world.
This rule shall be read twice by the self-proclaimed social justice warriors and proud Marxists who think their economic model made by reading few blog posts and watching few clips on youtube can remove the poverty from the world. Don't hate the people in power there is a reason why they are there and not always it's a corrupt system that elects them.
7. Pursue what is meaningful (not what is expedient).
This rule is dubbed as the core ethos of the book by Jordan Peterson. People pursue what others think is fitting and this leads to life successful only in the eyes of others and no contentment is achieved.
Think yourself as a computer you are training, a machine learning program if you will feed the wrong data then the results it is going to produce is also going to be corrupt too. that is very much how our brain works that's why machine learning programs are called neural networks because they are based upon how our brain works if you lie or try to hide the truth you corrupt your thought process slowly.
9. Assume that the person you are listening to might know something you don’t.
This rule always sets you in a learning mode, sometimes people argue to defend their beliefs so hard they begin to ignore what the other person is even saying. Flat Earthers and conspiracy theory experts should read this section of the book twice. This rule teaches us to be aware of our own ignorance and prejudices in order to become more definite.
10. Be precise in your speech.
This rule knocks the door of the psychology of perception. To sum this rule up you don't get what you don't aim at how will you reach somewhere if you don't know where that place is?
Is a discussion on courage or to be more precise on the encouragement of children so they explore the world around them and act in a manner that is acceptable socially so that the world opens up to them with possibilities of a better future. Its also means to let the kids take risks and don't shelter them from difficulties parents who do that make their kids weaker.
12. Pet a cat when you encounter one on the street.
This chapter contains the necessity of narrowing your time frame. If your life is under control your frame to change it is in years if its little bit disturbed you bring te change sooner within months and if you are in a tough spot may be days or hours. Whenever you have a limited amount of time you accordingly use it to appreciate the little things in life you can amidst every Catastrophe and petting a cat on the streets symbolizes just that.
Who should buy this book?
Anyone who wants to improve themselves must buy this book. There is going to be something that you can learn from in this book because it covers such a vast set of problems to solve. The language of the book can be hard to grasp if you are not familiar with the works, lectures of Jordan Peterson but if you are willing to go into this book you will not regret it because there is something for everyone in this.
RATING
I would have given this book 10/10 but I feel like this book was not even when it came to the justification of the rules, what I mean by that is in some rules Jordan Peterson beats the point too hard and in others not that much. I wish every rule was given the same amount of content. The rule 6 Set your house in perfect order before you criticize the world is given only 14 pages of content while the rule 11 Do not bother children when they are skate-boarding is given 50 pages. I wish there was more of this book but yeah if we apply rule 10 Be precise in your speech I guess speaking not more than necessary justifies the uneven content distribution of content within the chapters.
8/10
