12 Rules for Life: an Antidote to Chaos - Jordan B. Peterson

Read May 20, 2018.

Jordan Peterson is a clinical psychologist and a professor at the University of Toronto. He has received fame through a viral video in which he is seen attempting to reason with student activists. Although the video was intended to label him as a transphobe, most viewers empathized with Peterson and the frustration he displayed in the recorded conversation. Today, Peterson has gained more than a million followers across YouTube, Twitter, and Patreon, and has been widely recognized as an intellect through media coverage of his lectures, debates, and interviews. Peterson’s newest book, 12 Rules for Life, introduces a set of guidelines Peterson crafted through his experience as a clinical psychologist, lecturer, father, husband, friend, and individual. I have greatly enjoyed reading 12 Rules for Life and have promised myself to return to it once more upon graduating college.

RULE 1: STAND UP STRAIGHT WITH YOUR SHOULDERS BACK

The “ready” stance can be seen in every sport. It’s usually composed of feet placed shoulder-width apart, a slight crouch, and arms relaxed but not hanging— a position that allows the body to react at a moment’s notice. Just as we prepare our body to get into action, Peterson advises us to prepare to take on whatever the world throws at you. The mind is only as strong as the body it hosts. But what if our posture is fine? What extra measures can we take to ready ourselves? Peterson recommends an introspective awareness of our own capabilities.

“There is very little difference between the capacity for mayhem and destruction, integrated, and strength of character. This is one of the most difficult lessons in life.” (25)

This is a recurring theme in Peterson’s book: the duality of understanding and capability. It is only because we know the consequences of some of our actions that we do not perform them. For example, we do not hurt others because we know what it is like to be hurt ourselves. There are no strict barriers that prevent us from hurting one another. There may be laws, but in this case laws are simply written agreements between people. There is no physical barrier we have to break through in order to cause harm. The understanding that is shared due to these circumstances are what makes human society and human individuals, humane.

RULE 2: TREAT YOURSELF LIKE SOMEONE YOU ARE RESPONSIBLE FOR HELPING

Altruism may be a function of social responsibility, but it sometimes clashes with personal valuation. After all, we as individuals are praised after sacrificing the self to save another— the fireman who dived into a burning building to save children, the bystander who tackles the purse snatcher— the question is, to what degree should we respect others over ourselves? A safe answer would be: as long as the action we take to benefit ourselves does not produce harm or cost to another. If so, what does it mean to respect ourselves, to act in a way that values the individual within? Peterson replies that to care for yourself is to bring meaning into your life. And meaning is found not solely in order nor chaos, but in between.

“Order is not enough. You can’t just be stable, and secure, and unchanging, because there are still vital and important new things to be learned. Nonetheless, chaos can be too much. You can’t long tolerate being swamped and overwhelmed beyond your capacity to cope while you are learning what you still need to know. Thus, you need to place one foot in what you have mastered and understood and the other in what you are currently exploring and mastering. Then you have positioned yourself where the terror of existence is under control and you are secure, but where you are also alert and engaged. That is where there is something new to master and some way that you can be improved. That is where meaning is to be found.” (44)

Similar to the idea of yin-yang, order and chaos cannot exist separately. It is the idea of chaos which produces order, and the idea of order that recognizes chaos. Beyond order and chaos, however, lies the question of how we apply these concepts to everyday life. Here we return to the idea of dualities, specifically of the one found within our consciousness.

 “Unlike us, predators have no comprehension of their fundamental weakness, their fundamental vulnerability, their own subjugation to pain and death. But we know exactly how and where we can be hurt, and why. That is as good a definition as any of self-consciousness. We are aware of our own defenselessness, finitude and mortality. We can feel pain, and self-disgust, and shame, and horror, and we know it. We know what makes us suffer. We know how dread and pain can be inflicted on us— and that means we know exactly how to inflict it on others. We know how we are naked, and how that nakedness can be exploited— and that means we know how others are naked, and how they can be exploited.” (54)

This is a frightening thought, actually. That our weaknesses are in consideration, shared with each other. It also aligns with the antagonization of psychopaths— those who do not have a conscience, who do not feel guilt for taking advantage of others. They lack the common feature we share, perhaps elevating them in the social food chain as potential predators. Regardless, it is this self-consciousness that positions us between order and chaos and maintains the balance in between.

RULE 3: MAKE FRIENDS WITH PEOPLE WHO WANT TO BEST FOR YOU

Many things have changed in the short 21 years I’ve lived— most of which are still changing. Thoughts mature, values solidify, and my understanding of the world, as I perceive it, widens. Consequently, the ability to empathize grows as well. It is interesting that understanding yourself allows you to better understand someone else. In this respect, however, it becomes increasingly difficult to separate personal standards to your expectations for friends and family. Especially with the rise of the I-am-amazing-no-matter-what ideology today, it’s never been easier to shrug off personal faults, as well as to validate excuses for the shortcomings of people I care about. This topic, in my experience, has become weirdly taboo to discuss, since any dissenting opinion challenges the value of anecdotal evidence against third-party opinions and the importance of self-acceptance. In this line of thought, Peterson weighs the consequences of struggling for personal growth versus stagnant acceptance.

“Before you help someone, you should find out why that person is in trouble. You shouldn’t merely assume that he or she is a noble victim of unjust circumstances and exploitation. It’s the most unlikely explanation, not the most probable. In my experience— clinical and otherwise— it’s just never been that simple. 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…

It is far more likely that a given individual has just decided to reject the path upwards, because of its difficulty. Perhaps that should even be your default assumption, when faced with such a situation. That’s too harsh, you think. You might be right. Maybe that’s a step too far. But consider this: failure is easy to understand. No explanation for its existence is required. In the same manner, fear, hatred, addiction, promiscuity, betrayal and deception require no explanation. It’s not the existence of vice, or the indulgence in it, that requires explanation. Vice is easy. Failure is easy, too. It’s easier not to shoulder a burden. It’s easier not to think, and not to do, and not to care. It’s easier to put off until tomorrow what needs to be done today, and drown the upcoming months and years in today’s cheap pleasures.” (80)

To simplify, Peterson argues that accepting excuses at face value will ultimately do no good for anyone involved. It is a generalized conclusion from his experience, which I do not have complete knowledge of. I do agree, however, with the notion that there is more to valuing yourself than spitting excuses. But this is simply because the experiences I’ve had thus far has shaped my idea of failure to be of my responsibility. If someone else has lived their life never having to take responsibility for their failures (or perhaps only purely externally-cause failures have occurred in their lives), it seems reasonable for such an individual to disagree. I only raise this concern because it seems impossible to fully understand someone else’s experience. Perhaps this explains why we should be friends with people who want the best for us. These people will not let us stagnate and encourage us to grow, even if that means struggling for it.

RULE 4: COMPARE YOURSELF TO WHO YOU WERE YESTERDAY, NOT TO WHO SOMEONE ELSE IS TODAY

I feel like this rule is widely accepted without much reservation. There is no use in comparing yourself to someone else as a standard. As long as you do your best, such an action becomes pointless. It is, however, ridiculously difficult to convince yourself that your past actions are your best attempt. The realization of your limitations is not a pleasant one.

RULE 5: DO NOT LET YOUR CHILDREN DO ANYTHING THAT MAKES YOU DISLIKE THEM

“The appearance of triviality is deceptive: it is the things that occur every single day that truly make up our lives, and time spent the same way over and again adds up at an alarming rate.” (117) 

With the advent of social media, we began to describe our lives with highlights, refusing to share the mundane components in favor of the extraordinary. Peterson, however, focuses on a different aspect of this phenomenon. He explains that since the mundane aspects of life are so frequent, we fail to recognize their occurrences. In turn, our perception of life hinges on specific moments rather than the sum of trivialities that actually define it. It is under this principle, that Peterson repositions the spotlight towards the mundane. If we wish to have control over our life, it is the mundane things we must focus on— the small things that add up. In other words, pay attention to the details. By the time they add up to become noticeable, things may be too late to change. Peterson extends this logic to raising kids:

“Parents who refuse to adopt the responsibility for disciplining their children think they can just opt out of the conflict necessary for proper child-rearing, They avoid being the bad guy (in the short term). But they do not at all rescue or protect their children from fear and pain. Quite the contrary: the judgmental and uncaring broader social world will mete out conflict and punishment far greater than that which would have been delivered by an awake parent. You can discipline your children, or you can turn that responsibility over to the harsh, uncaring judgmental world— and the motivation for the latter decision should never be confused with love.” (134)

If you notice your kids doing something you dislike, don’t let that become a normal occurrence. By letting things go without correcting them, the behaviors you ignore may build up into something despicable— perhaps to the extent of antagonizing the relationship between parent and child. Obviously, this is not good. Another thing Peterson mentions is the preference to have parents teach their children instead of pushing themselves in the world, unprepared. It is the parents responsibility to prepare the child, as the world is comparatively uncaring and objectively cold. Refusing to correct your kids’ behavior to allow them to “be themselves” is not justifiable, and will not do them any good once they grow up. Children are not inherently good nor right— correction will be inevitable, one way or another. Thus, the question becomes: what or how should you teach your kids? Perhaps before all that, how can you know what you teach them is correct?

RULE 6: SET YOUR HOUSE IN PERFECT ORDER BEFORE YOU CRITICIZE THE WORLD

Just as how we affect the environment we inhabit, it is expected that the environment also has an effect on us. Imagine trying to meditate in a rock concert, or holding a business meeting at a crowded bar. Without realizing it, we uphold the match between specific behaviors and settings. We meditate in silence. We hold business meetings in offices. Therefore, if you want to organize your thoughts, you best believe your surrounding must be organized as well. Peterson extends this idea from how we can manipulate our individual environment— like our bedrooms or homes, to how people learn from the environment they cannot control— their external experiences.

“People who experience evil may certainly desire to perpetuate it, to pay it forward. But it is also possible to learn good by experiencing evil. A bullied boy can mimic his tormentors. But he can also learn from his own abuse that it is wrong to push people around and make their lives miserable. Someone tormented by her mother can learn from her terrible experiences how important it is to be a good parent.” (153)

Here, Peterson returns to the idea of duality and relativity. Although indirect, I believe Peterson also discusses the idea of free will. Recognizing the relative relationship between good and evil allows an individual to perpetuate either good or evil. The capacity to do so is granted. It is now up to the individual to decide. Thus, it is the series of such decisions that constitutes our principles and values, which, in turn, assigns meaning to the various aspects of our lives.

RULE 7: PURSUE WHAT IS MEANINGFUL (NOT WHAT IS EXPEDIENT) 

To pursue something meaningful is preceded by assigning meaning to something, which is preceded by understanding learning to produce meaning. This requires some introspection. Peterson uses the example of human vulnerability to break down the thought processes involved in realizing, extending, and applying the understanding of vulnerability.

“Once you become consciously aware that you, yourself, are vulnerable, you understand the nature of human vulnerability, in general. You understand what it’s like to be fearful, and angry, and resentful, and bitter. You understand what pain means. And once you truly understand such feelings in yourself, and how they’re produced, you understand how to produce them in others. It is in this manner that the self-conscious beings that we become voluntarily and exquisitely capable of tormenting others.” (175)

The understanding of vulnerability thus engages you to act in certain ways, whether that be to exploit the vulnerability of others or respect it. Regardless, your understanding has imbued meaning into your actions. They are no longer random or chaotic. Rather, they stem from a logical progression of thought.

Similarly, Peterson urges you to consider the meaning you have assigned to your other behaviors. How did you come to the conclusion that you should binge-watch Netflix? How did you end up promising yourself a day of studying only to last half-an-hour? Once we become habitually conscious of the meaning behind our actions, we would be less likely to fall into the trap of meaningless pleasures. On this line of thought, perhaps we should also consider how our actions and their respective meanings can affect not only ourselves, but others as well.

RULE 8: TELL THE TRUTH— OR, AT LEAST, DON’T LIE

As communication is the most common interaction we perform with others, the easiest way (most effective with minimal effort) to direct the rational mind away from the truth is to lie. However, the tricky thing about the lying is that it is also possible to be “lying to yourself”— a phrase used to describe those who’ve strayed so far from reality that they simply cannot see why or how they’re wrong. Now we’ve introduced the possibility that the truth you perceive, at the best of your perceptive abilities, may not be true after all. That kind of sucks.

“Pride falls in love with its own creations, and tries to make them absolute.” (210) 

Pride, in excess, is a dangerous emotion. It starts out as a form of support, sticking around when everyone else has left, whispering words of encouragement that fuels the ego, just enough for us to keep going. But pride also feeds on pride— it is the drug of aspirations. As pride grows, you become more confident in yourself. Your posture changes, you begin to think your opinions really matter. “This is healthy,” you think. You’ve finally found the confidence to articulate yourself, so you begin to do so more and more. At some point you notice a couple people disagreeing with you but you let it slide since they probably don’t know as much as you. You might be wrong, but you didn’t become who you are today by accepting your faults. You remember the days of being shy and miserable and promise yourself to never return to that state of mind. No, you’ve accepted yourself for who you are and there is no need to apologize for that. Now pride has grown big enough to serve as a barrier between you and the rest of the world. It’s you vs. the world now baby, and you know from previous experience that you have what it takes to take the world on. The number of naysayers have increased substantially, but it doesn’t even matter now. Your past experiences tell you that the probability of you being wrong is basically zero. There isn’t even a slightest need to consider whether some of them might be right. But why aren’t people listening to you anymore? You’ve never been so frustrated. You can’t believe how dumb people can be. Why don’t they understand what you’re saying? By now you’re standing upon the wall of pride you’ve built, down at the peasants that just don’t get it. Unfortunately, no one else sees this wall— it is a personal creation, after all. The rest of us don’t even know you’ve erected such a thing. When you’re looking down at us in frustration, we don’t see the wall. All we see is you, at ground level just like the rest of us, staring at the ground so intently that you might as well have your head buried in it. You refuse to look up no matter what we say, and so we just collectively decide to leave you be. It’s you vs. the world forever, baby.

“The capacity of the rational mind to deceive, manipulate, scheme, trick, falsify, minimize, mislead, betray, prevaricate, deny, omit, rationalize, bias, exaggerate and obscure is so endless, so remarkable, that centuries of pre-scientific thought, concentrating on clarifying the nature of moral endeavor, regarded it as positively demonic. This is not because of rationality itself, as a process. That process can produce clarity and progress. It is because rationality is subject to the single worst temptation— to raise what it knows now to the status of an absolute.” (217)

RULE 9: ASSUME THAT THE PERSON YOU ARE LISTENING TO MIGHT KNOW SOMETHING YOU DON’T

A consequence of excessive pride is the conviction that only your thoughts and opinions are worth listening to. However, this can lead to the stagnation of thought where there is no need to compromise between, adapt to, or neutralize differing opinions. After all, how can your thoughts grow if there are no conflicts? Peterson recognizes this and reminds us what the act of thinking truly entails:

“People think they think, but it’s not true. It’s mostly self-criticism that passes for thinking. True thinking is rare— just like true listening. Thinking is listening to yourself. It’s difficult. To think, you have to be at least two people at the same time. Then you have to let those people disagree. Thinking is an internal dialogue between two or more different views of the world. Viewpoint One is an avatar in a simulated world. It has its own representations of past, present and future, and its own ideas about how to act. So do Viewpoints Two, and Three, and Four. Thinking is the process by which these internal avatars imagine and articulate their worlds to one another.” (241)

The phenomenon articulated by Peterson is interesting in that thought entails the coexistence of multiple personas within a single entity. It is as if we fracture ourselves to become a more complete whole. Similarly, another way of “fracturing” is to introduce another viewpoint. Thus, learning the viewpoints of other people and allowing them to interact with viewpoints of your own is a clear cut way of developing your thoughts. I would argue that it’s almost a short-cut, since adopting viewpoints that do not align with your own, purely for the sake of thinking is not an easy feat. This is why you should always assume that there is something you can learn from other people. Otherwise you would just be present you, forever. Under a small dose of positivity, let us assume that your thoughts to grow from talking to and learning from people. In turn, other people probably have developed their own thoughts from talking to you. That’s great! But what if you’re more of a listener than a talker? How can we efficiently articulate our thoughts?  

RULE 10: BE PRECISE IN YOUR SPEECH

We’ve all felt the frustration of being unable to voice the idea in our head. There is skill involved in being able to precisely communicate thoughts and feelings. Beyond the ability to articulate your thoughts, Peterson considers the consequences of articulation. He explains that zeroing into a concept brings the concept into existence, which may be unwelcome or problematic for certain situations. Peterson argues, however, that regardless of the outcome, specification will lead to an opportunity of growth and learning. His explanation reminded me of an alcoholic coming to realization that he or she has a problem.

“Why refuse to specify, when specifying the problem would enable its solution? Because to specify the problem is to admit that is exists. Because to specify the problem is to allow yourself to know what you want, say, from friend or lover— and then you will know, precisely and cleanly, when you don’t get it, and that will hurt, sharply and specifically. But you will learn something from that, and use what you learn in the future— and the alternative to that single sharp pain is the dull ache of continued hopelessness and vague failure and the sense that time, precious time, is slipping by.” (276)

In continuation, Peterson states that it is better to address the problem early, before it builds up into something unmanageable. Here we return to the idea of order and chaos. If we are able to specify the problems in life and grow from the pain that ensues from acknowledging their existence, we are able to maintain order. However, allowing the problem to grow by not acknowledging it would inevitably invite chaos.

 “If you shirk the responsibility of confronting the unexpected, even when it appears in manageable doses, reality itself will become unsustainably disorganized and chaotic. Then it will grow bigger and swallow all order, all sense, and all predictability. Ignored reality transforms itself (reverts back) into the great Goddess of Chaos, the great reptilian Monster of the Unknown— the great predatory beast against which mankind has struggled since the dawn of time. If the gap between pretense and reality goes unmentioned, it will widen, you will fall into it, and the consequences will not be good. Ignored reality manifests itself in an abyss of confusion and suffering.” (281)

Then, to maintain order in our everyday lives, it is crucial to be aware of how these various aspects of life are fitting into the mold that symbolizes order. Peterson describes it as a recognition of the journey from point A to point B. It could also be imagined as puzzle pieces coming together.

“You must determine where you have been in your life, so that you can know where you are now. If you don’t know where you are, precisely, then you could be anywhere. Anywhere is too many places to be, and some of those places are very bad. You must determine where you have been in your life, because otherwise you can’t get to where you’re going. You can’t get from point A to point B unless you are already at point A, and if you’re just “anywhere” the chances you are at point A are very small indeed.” (282)

Once you become aware of the order in your life, you are then able to recognize chaos, and turn that into order as well. And in between order and chaos, as Peterson mentions above, you will find meaning.  

RULE 11: DO NOT BOTHER CHILDREN WHEN THEY ARE SKATEBOARDING

“People, including children (who are people too, after all) don’t seek to minimize risk. They seek to optimize it. They drive and walk and love and play so that they achieve what they desire, but they push themselves a bit at the same time, too, so they continue to develop. Thus, if things are made too safe, people (including children) start to figure out ways to make them dangerous again.” (287) 

This quote by Peterson is reminiscent of his previous statements. Children that feel safe will invite danger. This is because order, by itself, is boring. So they invite a bit of chaos, and they adapt to it; widening their capability of maintaining order. So allow your kids to branch out and explore the world. Of course, you should intervene if you believe the chaos they are trying to manage is too much for them to handle. But you get what Peterson is trying to say. Let kids be kids.

RULE 12: PET A CAT WHEN YOU ENCOUNTER ONE ON THE STREET

“Imagine a Being who is omniscient, omnipresent, and omnipotent. What does such a Being lack? The answer? Limitation.” (343)

Just as there is no thrill or enjoyment in order without chaos and no feeling of safety or satisfaction in chaos without order, Peterson states that there is nothing desirable about perfection. The limitation of imperfect beings (us) is what produces chaos that can be managed into order. It is this dynamic of life which introduces meaning into our lives. As cliché as it sounds, it is about the journey towards perfection, not the destination. I believe this is Peterson’s way of telling us to acknowledge our limitations and work towards improving the self. Set the ceiling a little bit higher. In doing so, our lives will be imbued with meaning.

Overall, there are aspects of Peterson’s book which resonate with me even though I’ve never held thoughts similar to his own. As a result, I was intrigued by his writing and have greatly enjoyed his ideas. In discussion with my parents, I’ve learned that many of Peterson’s principles are shared in Buddhist ideologies, the similarities between the concept of order & chaos and yin & yang come to mind first. I hope to return to this book upon graduation, curious of whether my response to Peterson’s writing will have changed.

As always, my favorite snippets of the book are below:

“It is also a mistake to conceptualize nature romantically. Rich, modern city-dwellers, surrounded by hot, baking concrete, imagine the environment as something pristine and paradisal, like a French impressionist landscape. Eco-activists, even more idealistic in their viewpoint, envision nature as harmoniously balanced and perfect, absent the disruptions and depredations of mankind. Unfortunately, “the environment” is also elephantiasis and guinea worms, anopheles mosquitoes and malaria, starvation-level droughts, AIDS and the Black Plague. We don’t fantasize about the beauty of these aspects of nature, although they are just as real as their Edenic counterparts.” (14)

“All that matters, from a Darwinian perspective, is permanence— and the dominance hierarchy, however social or cultural it might appear, has been around for some half a billion years. It’s permanent. It’s real. The dominance hierarchy is not capitalism. It’s not communism, either, for that matter. It’s not the military-industrial complex. It’s not the patriarchy— that disposable, malleable, arbitrary cultural artefact. It’s not even a human creation; not in the most profound sense. It is instead a near-eternal aspect of the environment, and much of what is blamed on these more ephemeral manifestations is a consequence of its unchanging existence. We (the sovereign we, the we that has been around since the beginning of life) have lived in a dominance hierarchy for a long, long time. We were struggling for position before we had skin, or hands, or lungs, or bones. There is little more natural than culture. Dominance hierarchies are older than trees.” (14)

“I have had many clients whose anxiety was reduced to subclinical levels merely because they started to sleep on a predictable schedule and eat breakfast.” (18)

“Anxiety-induced retreat makes everything retreated from more anxiety-inducing. Anxiety-induced retreat makes the self smaller and the ever-more dangerous world larger.” (22)

“If you say no, early in the cycle of oppression, and you mean what you say (which means you state your refusal in no uncertain terms and stand behind it) then the scope for oppression on the part of oppressor will remain properly bounded and limited.” (24)

“Standing up means voluntarily accepting the burden of Being. Your nervous system responds in an entirely different manner when you face the demands of life voluntarily. You respond to a challenge, instead of bracing for a catastrophe… 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.” (27)

“People are better at filling and properly administering prescription medication to their pets than to themselves. That’s not good. Even from your pet’s perspective, it’s not good. Your pet (probably) loves you, and would be happier if you took your medication.” (33)

“We evolved, over millennia, within intensely social circumstances. This means that the most significant elements of our environment of origin were personalities, not things, objects or situation.” (39)

“We eternally inhabit order, surrounded by chaos. We eternally occupy known territory, surrounded by the unknown. We experience meaningful engagement when we mediate appropriately between them. We are adapted, in the deepest Darwinian sense, not to the world of objects, but to the meta-realities of order and chaos, yang and yin. Chaos and order make up the eternal, transcendent environment of the living.” (43)

“But you know so much more about yourself. You’re bad enough, as other people know you. But only you know the full range of your secret transgressions, inefficiencies and inadequacies. No one is more familiar than you with all the ways your mind and body are flawed. No one has more reason to hold you in contempt, to see you as pathetic— and by withholding something that might do you good, you can punish yourself for all your failings.” (53)

“If the cards are always stacked against you, perhaps the game you are playing is somehow rigged (perhaps by you, unbeknownst to yourself). If the internal voice makes you doubt the value of your endeavors— or your life, or life itself— perhaps you should stop listening. If the critical voice within says the same denigrating things about everyone, no matter how successful, how reliable can it be? Maybe its comments are chatter, not wisdom. There will always be people better than you— that’s a cliché of nihilism, like the phrase, In a million years, who’s going to know the difference? The proper response to that statement is not, Well, then, everything is meaningless. Any idiot can choose a frame of time within which nothing matters. Talking yourself into irrelevance is not a profound critique of Being. It’s a cheap trick of the rational mind.” (87)

“When the internal critic puts you down using such comparisons, here’s how it operates: First, it selects a single, arbitrary domain of comparison (fame, maybe, or power). Then it acts as if that domain is the only one that is relevant. Then it contrasts you unfavorably with someone truly stellar within that domain. It can take that final step even further, using the unbridgeable gap between you and its target of comparison as evidence for the fundamental injustice of life. That way your motivation to do anything at all can be most effectively undermined. Those who accept such an approach to self-evaluation certainly can’t be accused of making things too easy for themselves. But it’s just as big a problem to make things too difficult.

When we are very young we are neither individual nor informed. We have not had the time nor gained the wisdom to develop our own standards. In consequence, we must compare ourselves to others, because standards are necessary. Without them, there is nowhere to go and nothing to do. As we mature we become, by contrast, increasingly individual and unique. The conditions of our lives become more and more personal and less and less comparable with those of others. Symbolically speaking, this means we must leave the house ruled by our father, and confront the chaos of our individual Being. We must take note of our disarray, without completely abandoning the father in the process. We must then rediscover the values of our culture— veiled from us by our ignorance, hidden in the dusty treasure-trove of the past— rescue them, and integrate them into our own lives. This is what gives existence its full and necessary meaning.” (89)

“But we can see. We can even see things that aren’t there. We can envision new ways that things could be better. We can construct new, hypothetical worlds, where problems we weren’t even aware of can now show themselves and be addressed. The advantages of this are obvious: we can change the world so that the intolerable state of the present can be rectified in the future. The disadvantage to all this foresight and creativity is chronic unease and discomfort. Because we always contrast what is with what could be, we have to aim at what could be. But we can aim too high. Or too low. Or too chaotically. So we fail and live in disappointment, even when we appear to others to be living well. How can we benefit from our imaginativeness, our ability to improve the future, without continually denigrating our current, insufficiently successful and worthless lives?

The first step, perhaps, is to take stock. Who are you? When you buy a house and prepare to live in it, you hire an inspector to list all its faults— as it is, in reality, now, not as you wish it could be. You’ll even pay him for the bad news. You need to know. You need to discover the home’s hidden flaws. You need to know whether they are cosmetic imperfections or structural inadequacies. You need to know because you can’t fix something if you don’t know it’s broken— and you’re broken. You need an inspector. The internal critic— it could play that role, if you could get it on track; if you and it could cooperate. It could help you take stock. But you must walk through your psychological house with it and listen judiciously to what it says. Maybe you’re a handy-man’s dream, a real fixer-upper. How can you start your renovations without being demoralized, even crushed, by your internal critic’s lengthy and painful report for your inadequacies?

Here’s a hint. The future is like the past. But there’s a crucial difference. The past is fixed, but the future— it could be better. It could be better, some precise amount— the amount that can be achieved, perhaps, in a day, with some minimal engagement. The present is eternally flawed. But where you start might not be as important as the direction you are heading. Perhaps happiness is always to be found in the journey uphill, and not in the fleeting sense of satisfaction awaiting at the next peak. Much of happiness is hope, no matter how deep the underworld in which that hope was conceived.” (94)

“What you aim at determines what you see.” (96)

“Faith is not the childish belief in magic. That is ignorance or even willful blindness. It is instead the realization that the tragic irrationalities of life must be counterbalanced by an equally irrational commitment to the essential goodness of Being.” (107)

“It is an act of responsibility to discipline a child. It is not anger at misbehavior. It is not revenge for a misdeed. It is instead a careful combination of mercy and long-term judgment. Proper discipline requires effort— indeed, is virtually synonymous with effort. It is difficult to pay careful attention to children. It is difficult to figure out what is wrong and what is right and why. It is difficult to formulate just and compassionate strategies of disciplines, and to negotiate their application with others deeply involved in a child’s care. Because of this combination of responsibility and difficulty, any suggestion that all constraints placed on children are damaging can be perversely welcome. Such a notion, once accepted, allows adults who should know better to abandon their duty to serve as agents of enculturation and pretend that doing so is good for children. It’s a deep and pernicious act of self-deception. It’s lazy, cruel and inexcusable. And our proclivity to rationalize does not end there.” (124)

“Without that correction, no child is going to undergo the effortful process of organizing and regulating their impulses, so that those impulses can coexist, without conflict, within the psyche of the child, and in the broader social world. It is no simple matter to organize a mind.” (126)

“Parents have a duty to act as proxies for the real world— merciful proxies, caring proxies— but proxies, nonetheless. This obligation supersedes any responsibility to ensure happiness, foster creativity, or boost self-esteem. It is the primary duty of parents to make their children socially desirable. That will provide the child with opportunity, self-regard, and security. It’s more important even than fostering individual identity. The Holy Grail can only be pursued, in any case, after a high degree of social sophistication has been established.” (143)

“To share does not mean to give away something you value, and get nothing back. That is instead only what every child who refuses to share fear it means. To share means, properly, to initiate the process of trade. A child who can’t share— who can’t trade— can’t have any friends, because having friends is a form of trade. Benjamin Franklin once suggested that a newcomer to a neighborhood ask a new neighbor to do him or her a favor, citing an old maxim: He that has once done you a kindness will be more ready to do you another than he whom you yourself have obliged. In Franklin’s opinion, asking someone for something (not too extreme, obviously) was the most useful and immediate invitation to social interaction. Such asking on the part of the newcomer provided the neighbor with an opportunity to show him- or herself as a good person, at first encounter. It also meant that the latter could now ask the former for a favor, in return, because of the debt incurred, increasingly their mutual familiarity and trust. In that manner both parties could overcome their natural hesitancy and mutual fear of the stranger.” (168)

“Nietzsche writes, “The Christians have never practiced the actions Jesus prescribed them; and the impudent garrulous talk about the ‘justification by faith’ and its supreme and sole significance is only the consequence of the Church’s lack of courage and will to profess the works Jesus demanded.” Nietzsche was, indeed, a critic without parallel.” (189)

“If a father disciplines his son properly, he obviously interferes with his freedom, particularly in the here-and-now. He put limits on the voluntary expression of his son’s Being, forcing him to take his place as a socialized member of the world. Such a father requires that all that childish potential be funneled down a singly pathway. In placing such limitations on his son, he might be considered a destructive force, acting as he does to replace the miraculous plurality of childhood with a single narrow actuality. But if the father does not take such action, he merely lets his son remain Peter Pan, the eternal Boy, King of the Lost Boys, Ruler of the non-existent Neverland. That is not a morally acceptable alternative.” (192)

“What can I not doubt? The reality of suffering. It brooks no arguments. Nihilists cannot undermine it with skepticism. Totalitarians cannot banish it. Cynics cannot escape from its reality. Suffering is real, and the artful infliction of suffering on another, for its own sake, is wrong. That became the cornerstone of my belief. Searching through the lowest reaches of human thought and action, understanding my own capacity to act like a Nazi prison guard or a gulag archipelago trustee or a torturer of children in a dungeon, I grasped what it meant to “take the sins of the world onto oneself.” Each human being has an immense capacity for evil. Each human being understands, a priori, perhaps not what is good, but certainly what is not. And if there is something that is not good, then there is something that is good. If the worst sin is the torment of others, merely for the sake of the suffering produced— then the good is whatever is diametrically opposed to that. The good is whatever stops such things from happening.” (198)

“You may find that if you attend to these moral obligations, once you have placed “make the world better” at the top of your value hierarchy, you experience ever-deepening meaning. It’s not bliss. It’s not happiness. It is something more like atonement for the criminal fact of your fractured and damaged Being. It’s payment of the debt you owe for the insane and horrible miracle of your existence.” (200)

“Meaning is the ultimate balance between, on the one hand, the chaos of transformation and possibility and on the other, the discipline of pristine order, whose purpose is to produce out of the attendant chaos a new order that will be even more immaculate, and capable of bringing forth a still more balanced and productive chaos and order. Meaning is the Way, the path of life more abundant, the place you live when you are guided by Love and speaking Truth and when nothing you want or could possibly want takes any precedence over precisely that. Do what is meaningful, not what is expedient.” (201)

“One forty-something client told me his vision, formulated by his younger self: “I see myself retired, sitting on a tropical beach, drinking margaritas in the sunshine.” That’s not a plan. That’s a travel poster. After eight margaritas you’re fit only to await the hangover. After three weeks of margarita-filled days, if you have any sense, you’re bored stiff and self-disgusted. In a year, or less, you’re pathetic. It’s just not a sustainable approach to later life. This kind of oversimplification and falsification is particularly typical of ideologues. They adopt a single axiom: government is bad, immigration is bad, capitalism is bad, patriarchy is bad. Then they filter and screen their experiences and insist ever more narrowly that everything can be explained by that axiom. They believe, narcissistically, underneath all that bad theory, that the world could be put right, if only they held the controls.” (211)

“Much of what we consider healthy mental function is the result of our ability to use the reactions of others to keep our complex selves functional. We outsource the problem of our sanity. This is why it is the fundamental responsibility of parents to render their children socially acceptable. If a person’s behavior is such that other people can tolerate him, then all he has to do is place himself in a social context. Then people will indicate— by being interested in or bored by what he says, or laughing or not laughing at his jokes, or teasing or ridiculing, or even by lifting an eyebrow— whether his actions and statements are what they should be. Everyone is always broadcasting to everyone else their desire to encounter the ideal. We punish and reward each other precisely to the degree that each of us behaves in keeping with that desire— except, of course, when we are looking for trouble.” (250)

“Everything is intricate beyond imagining. Everything is affected by everything else. We perceive a very narrow slice of a causally interconnected matrix, although we strive with all our might to avoid being confronted by knowledge of that narrowness. The thin veneer of perceptual sufficiency cracks, however, when something fundamental goes wrong. The dreadful inadequacy of our senses reveals itself. Everything we hold dear crumbles to dust. We freeze. We turn to stone. What then do we see? Where can we look? When it is precisely what we see that has been insufficient?” (267)

“Life is indistinguishable from effortful maintenance. No one finds a match so perfect that the need for continued attention and work vanishes (and, besides, if you found the perfect person, he or she would run away from ever-so-imperfect you in justifiable horror). In truth, what you need— what you deserve, after all— is someone exactly as imperfect as you.” (273)

“The problem itself must be admitted to, as close to the time of its emergence as possible. “I’m unhappy,” is a good start (not “I have a right to be unhappy,” because that is still questionable, at the beginning of the problem-solving process). Perhaps your unhappiness is justified, under the current circumstances. Perhaps any reasonable person would be displeased and miserable to be where you are. Alternatively, perhaps, you are just whiny and immature? Consider both at least equally probable, as terrible as such consideration might appear. Just exactly how immature might you be? There’s a potentially bottomless pit. But at least you might rectify it, if you can admit to it.” (279)

“The U.S. National Institute of Health, to take a single bureaucratic example, recognizes American Indian or Alaska Native, Asian, Black, Hispanic, Native Hawaiian or other Pacific Islander, and White. But there are more than five hundred separate American Indian tribes. By what possible logic should “American Indian” therefore stand as a canonical category? Osage tribal members have a yearly average income of $30K, while Tohono O’odham’s make $11K. Are they equally oppressed? What about disabilities? Disabled people should make as much as non-disabled people. OK. On the surface, that’s a noble, compassionate, fair claim. But who is disabled? Is someone living with a parent with Alzheimer’s disabled? If not, why not? What about someone with a lower IQ? Someone less attractive? Someone overweight? Some people clearly move through life markedly overburdened with problems that are beyond their control, but it is a rare person indeed who isn’t suffering from at least one serious catastrophe at any given time— particularly if you include their family in the equation. And why shouldn’t you? Here’s the fundamental problem: group identity can be fractionated right down to the level of the individual. That sentence should be written in capital letters. Every person is unique— and not just in a trivial manner: importantly, significantly, meaningfully unique. Group membership cannot capture that variability. Period.” (316)

“You might think, “if they loved me, they would know what to do.” That’s the voice of resentment. Assume ignorance before malevolence. No one has a direct pipeline to your wants and needs— not even you. If you try to determine exactly what you want, you might find that it is more difficult that you think. The person oppressing you is likely no wiser than you, especially about you. Tell them directly what would be preferable, instead, after you have sorted it out. Make your request as small and reasonable as possible— but ensure that its fulfillment would satisfy you. In that manner, you come to the discussion with a solution, instead of just a problem.” (320)

“When you decide to learn about your faults, so that they can be rectified, you open a line of communication with the source of all revelatory thought. Maybe that’s the same thing as consulting your conscience.” (358)

“To act to justify the suffering of your parents is to remember all the sacrifices that all the others who lived before you (not least your parents) have made for you in all the course of the terrible past, to be grateful for all the progress that has been thereby made, and then to act in accordance with that remembrance and gratitude. People sacrificed immensely to bring about what we have now. In many cases, they literally died for it— and we should act with some respect for that fact.” (360)

“Always place your becoming above your current being. That means it is necessary to recognize and accept your insufficiency, so that it can be continually rectified. That’s painful, certainly— but it’s a good deal.” (362)

“Failure to make the proper sacrifices, failure to reveal yourself, failure to live and tell the truth— all that weakens you. In that weakened state, you will be unable to thrive in the world, and you will be of no benefit to yourself or to others. You will fail and suffer, stupidly. That will corrupt your soul. How could it be otherwise? Life is hard enough when it is going well. But when it’s going badly? And I have learned through painful experience that nothing is going so badly that it can’t be made worse. This is why Hell is a bottomless pit. This is why Hell is associated with that aforementioned sin. In the most awful of cases, the terrible suffering of unfortunate souls becomes attributable, by their own judgment, to mistakes they made knowingly in the past: acts of betrayal, deception, cruelty, carelessness, cowardice and, most commonly of all, willful blindness. To suffer terribly and to know yourself as the cause: that is Hell. And once in Hell it is very easy to curse Being itself.” (367)