12 Rules For Life Part One

Thoughts on 118 days of quarantine.

Last week I finished listening to the book 12 Rules For Life by Jordan Peterson who is a clinical Psychologist and a professor of Psychology in Toronto, Canada. I listened to it both in English and Spanish to be able to listen to it with my mom when we are finished with the book we are currently listening. I will post about it in the future but for now "12 Rules For Life" has become a best-seller in numerous countries and by now has sold millions of copies maybe because the Author is a funny guy or the subject matter is quite intriguing. I don't know why people like his book so much but he has come up with very interesting ideas about life and makes very good points. Here is the overall theme of what each chapter is about. 

12 Rules For Life:

One

Stand tall with your shoulders back.

(He compares people to lobsters.)

"People, like lobsters, size each other up, partly in consequence of stance. If you present yourself as defeated, then people will react to you as if you are losing. If you start to straighten up, then people will look at and treat you differently. To stand up straight with your shoulders back is to accept the terrible responsibility of life, with eyes wide open. It means deciding to voluntarily transform the chaos of potential into the realities of habitable order. It means adopting the burden of self-conscious vulnerability, and accepting the end of the unconscious paradise of childhood, where finitude and mortality are only dimly comprehended. It means willingly undertaking the sacrifices necessary to generate a productive and meaningful reality (it means acting to please God, in the ancient language).

So, attend carefully to your posture. Quit drooping and hunching around. Speak your mind. 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. Encourage the serotonin to flow plentifully through the neural pathways desperate for its calming influence."

Two 

Treat yourself like you are someone you are responsible for helping.

(He explains how a big percentage of people do not take their own prescribed medication but they will surely do it for their pets.) 

"People are better at filling and properly administering prescription medication to their pets than to themselves...If we wish to take care of ourselves properly, we would have to respect ourselves—but we don’t, because we are—not least in our own eyes—fallen creatures. If we lived in Truth; if we spoke the Truth—then we could walk with God once again, and respect ourselves, and others, and the world. 

There are so many ways that things can fall apart, or fail to work altogether, and it is always wounded people who are holding it together. To treat yourself as if you were someone you are responsible for helping is, instead, to consider what would be truly good for you. This is not “what you want.” It is also not “what would make you happy.”

You need to consider the future and think, “What might my life look like if I were caring for myself properly?”

"You could help direct the world, on its careening trajectory, a bit more toward Heaven and a bit more away from Hell. Once having understood Hell, researched it, so to speak—particularly your own individual Hell—you could decide against going there or creating that. You could aim elsewhere. You could, in fact, devote your life to this."

Three

Make friends with people who want the best for you.

(In this chapter he tells of stories of people who ended up going the wrong path  by the friends they chose to have.) 

“The same thing happens when well-meaning counsellors place a delinquent teen among comparatively civilized peers. The delinquency spreads, not the stability. Down is a lot easier than up.

Assume first that you are doing the easiest thing, and not the most difficult.

Besides, if you buy the story that everything terrible just happened on its own, with no personal responsibility on the part of the victim, you deny that person all agency in the past (and, by implication, in the present and future, as well). In this manner, you strip him or her of all power.

Rogers believed it was impossible to convince someone to change for the better. The desire to improve was, instead, the precondition for progress. I’ve had court-mandated psychotherapy clients. They did not want my help. They were forced to seek it. It did not work. It was a travesty.

Here’s something to consider: If you have a friend whose friendship you wouldn’t recommend to your sister, or your father, or your son, why would you have such a friend for yourself?

You should choose people who want things to be better, not worse. It’s a good thing, not a selfish thing, to choose people who are good for you. It’s appropriate and praiseworthy to associate with people whose lives would be improved if they saw your life improve. When you dare aspire upward, you reveal the inadequacy of the present and the promise of the future.

Don’t think that it is easier to surround yourself with good healthy people than with bad unhealthy people. It’s not. A good, healthy person is an ideal. It requires strength and daring to stand up near such a person. Have some humility. Have some courage. Use your judgment, and protect yourself from too-uncritical compassion and pity."

I agree with his ideas and opinions. I highly recommend his book. Continuation tomorrow on four more chapters. 

Con amor,

Vero