10 Life Lessons from Dr. Jordan Peterson

[September 10, 2024]  I’ll admit it: I’m a fan of Dr. Jordan Peterson.  In this compilation of 10 life lessons put together by Motivation Core, Peterson brings forth some uncomfortable ideas about how to live a better life.

1. Stop Feeling Sorry for Yourself: You should push yourself beyond your limits of tolerance to find out where it is.  How much can you work?  How disciplined can you become?  Where’s your limit?  Push yourself past your limit and then back off to that point where it’s optimally sustainable.  There is the instinct to do more, but it’s unregulated.  Think about that as a goal to discover what our limitations are by pushing ourselves in every direction we can with an aim in mind to make ourselves into a better and more competent person.  Be more than you were.
2. Don’t Surround Yourself with Weak People: If you’re trying to get your life together and your friends get in the way, that is actually useful information because you have identified who your friends aren’t.  You might think, “Well, I can’t give them up.”  But yes, you can and not only can you, you should.  And it would be better for them because if they’re aiming down and they want you going down with them, there’s nothing good about what’s happening to them, and there’s certainly nothing about that for you.
3. Fear Your Weakness: Why are you afraid of being weak?  Well, it’s actually fear, the fear of hell.  Life is very hard.  If you make yourself weak, you will suffer immeasurably, and you will become bitter.  And once you’ve become bitter, you will become vengeful.  And after vengeful, there is no limit.  If you make yourself weak by engaging in deceit, and if you fail to take responsibility, then you transform yourself into something that cannot bear existence, and you will torture yourself.  That leads to very bad places.
4. Rich People Aren’t Evil: You’re a young person, and someone drives by in a fancy car with a good-looking partner, and you think: “Oh, my God, he’s got everything.” But you do not know the circumstances of that relationship at all.  If you are jealous, you might just be jealous of the poor circumstances that a “rich” person is experiencing.  You don’t want someone else’s fate.  Your fate is enough.  And your adventure is enough.  It’s plenty.  It’s more than you can fully realize.  And this is why we believe that the individual has intrinsic dignity.
5. Don’t Move Through Life Blindly: If you don’t know what you’re doing, then you don’t know where you are, and you don’t know where you’re going. And if you’re in that place, then you are in danger because it’s unmapped territory, and who knows what lurks in that territory.  If you’re so confused and disoriented that you don’t know where you are or where you’re going, there are predators who are waiting for you.  And the probability that you will move from aimless, hopeless, joyless, anxiety to nihilism, corrosive bitterness, and genocidal fantasy is very high.
6. Embrace Your Dark Side: Part of the reason people watch anti-heroes and villains is because a part of them is crying out for the incorporation of the monster within them, which is what gives them strength of character and self-respect. It is impossible to respect yourself until you ‘grow teeth.’  This is how you realize that you are dangerous, and then you might be willing to treat yourself with respect.  You must become a monster, but a monster that has their life under control and is not a monster.  There is no better alternative.  You are dangerous, but have it under control and the strength you develop as a monster is actually the best guarantee of peace.  Be ready to face the thing you least want to face.
7. Discipline is Not About Consistency: If you’re disciplined, then you are capable of making sacrifices; that is what it means. You’re not disciplined if you just do something you want more than something that you’re doing.  Discipline is when you want to do something right now, and then you have to figure out how to decompose what you want into actionable steps.  Some of those steps are not something you might want to do, but at least you understand the importance of doing them and are motivated to do them.  You have to negotiate with yourself and figure out what needs doing and maybe forestall what you want for potentially a long period of time and concentrate on something that will bear fruit in the medium to long term.  You look into the future, and you decide that by making today a little less impulsively pleasurable, you’ll make tomorrow more secure and productive, and then you actually do it.
8. Those Who Irritate You, Make You Better: Talking to people who agree with what you say is like walking around in a desert. You already know everything they say.  The reason you’re associating with them in that situation is so that they never say anything that challenges you because if you go outside of what you understand, you won’t be able to tolerate the chaos.  It might be useful to listen to people that annoy you on the off chance that they know something that if they tell you, you can use instead of dying.  People have an unbelievable capacity to face and overcome things they don’t understand.  And not only that, that’s essentially what gives life its meaning.
9. Don’t Wait: Don’t do nothing. That’s a big mistake because all you do is get older and weaker, and you withdraw more.  Even if you don’t know what to do, pursuing nothing is a very bad idea.  You have no hope then because hope comes from pursuit.  And you’re anxious because you need to specify a path.  You have no hope, and you are anxious if you do nothing.  So, nothing is not the answer.  So, why don’t we look and see what other people do that seems to work?  You don’t know what to do with your life.  Let’s break your life down.  Probably, you want an intimate partner.  Most people do.  You probably want a family of some sort.  Parents, you want to have a relationship with them.  Siblings, children, most people have children.  That’s the best relationship you’re ever going to have if you’re fortunate enough to engage in it.  Friends, it’s helpful to have some friends.  You need a job or a career because otherwise, you die, and people think you’re useless.  You should regulate your behavior in relationship to temptations like drug and alcohol abuse and sex.  You should think hard about doing something on the civic front.  Take care of yourself mentally and physically.  You need an educational plan.  And you should figure out how to make productive use of the time you have when you’re not working.
10. Being Happy Makes You Trapped: Positive emotion is associated with movement forward. If you are where you want to be and things are going well, then your behavior should be activated so that you can go and get things.  Positive emotion makes people impulsive.  You need a balance between positive and negative emotions.  Plus, positive emotions are absolutely exhausting.  To be overwhelmingly enthusiastic about everything sounds like a real blast.  It’s really not good.

10 Life Lessons that Most People Don’t Want You to Know – Jordan Peterson (youtube.com)

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Please read my books:

1. “55 Rules for a Good Life,” on Amazon (link here).
2. “Our Longest Year in Iraq,” on Amazon (link here).