12 Rules for Life by Jordan Peterson Book Review
In my
series on Dawn psychology we've seen that the major concerns of adulthood stem from
a mismatch between expectation and reality. Today I further elaborate on this
adding in solutions. The following thoughts which I've found to be quite
insightful I portray as a review of a brief segment of "Jordan Peterson's
12 rules for life". So you're out on the selfsame Monday morning, heading
to work, this time your heart misses a beat, your system collapses. In a
fraction of a second, the persons you've always expected them keep existing,
are gone. Or maybe after years of a seemingly perfect marriage that you've
invested your soul into, you're gifted a betrayal. Chaos is the second element
of the dual nature that holds the structure of existence.
The first
is "Order", everyone's buddy, in our modern times especially,
needless of introduction. Chaos in a sense, is all the shit you don't want
happening; the unexpected, the unknown, the far future. It is what shoves you
in that loop of victimization of "what the hell just happened, why me, why
now?” People go about their lives all the while repressing this element at the
back of their heads. An unconscious motive to maintain a false sense of
perpetual security. In all matters it's more comforting to see just the light
side. Point out one person who wants their leg be broken at this very moment. To
anticipate the best is pretty useful. You cannot be functional unless you've
got some hope. The key here is to take this little bit of hope you have and
stick to it a percentage of despair, at least hypothetically. Though everything
appears to be running smoothly, it's practical to keep that 1% of doubt.
So, what's
the matter here? Simply, anticipate the darkening of clouds when they are
white, the failure of a business if it's flourishing, and the ending of a
friendship when it's been going well. Those awful events may or may not occur. Either
or, the wisest prime themselves beforehand. This applies especially to your
dealing with those whom you deem the closest. So often that others are changing
for the worst, or start treating us badly, but the good emotions they emanate
can flood our cognition, we disregard. You are the dumbest when you're the
happiest. This sort of mental preparation of doubting beyond the positives keeps
you grounded in reality, so to be alert and judge strictly whenever anyone
deviates. Understand that when chaos has not shown its horns for a while, it
only signals an upcoming whirl storm.
Life will
lift you up and break you down alternately; it's just how things are. Acknowledge
chaos, be realistic. Stick one percent of doubt to all aspects of life. Acceptance
of chaos is half the battle. In fact it is unease which comes in to play the
moment you try to swallow such a hard pill. The second half is begin to
navigate existence in this new lenses; now no longer are you tossed about among
the two sides of the pendulum; learn to alternate between an ordered and chaotic
psychological mode of operating rather consciously. From a practical point, try
the following: Anytime you feel you're getting a bit more comfortable, things
are going well, pause to reflect. In this introspection the goal is to notice
if you had formed any kind of future expectation, particularly related to a
major aspect in which you feel you need it to go a certain way. Write it down. Write
a counter thought, your plan B if things go south. Do so for each expectation
you have (be it about the lasting of a relationship, a job, something).
Often will
you sense enormous resistance? You just want things to go your way, its fine. It
comes natural to the mind to beautify chaos. Sometimes it’s necessary to
release a strong emotion to come to accept an alternate vision of what might
happen. Let it all come up. Cry, hit the way, whatever, let it out. You can do
the same exercise for negative anticipations as well, but I'd say the mind rarely
works to cause itself imbalance. Often and spontaneously that negatives are
recycled in a new light. Even if unrealistic, the psyche strives for
psychological stability at all costs--backwards rationalization. Now go about
your life and regularly remind yourself of your counter thoughts. It might be
necessary to go through an emotional release every time you do so. By doing
this basically you're bringing disorder to daily ordered thoughts. You see the
primal human would get eaten at any moment so he had to live in that doubtful, anxious
state most of the time. In times of rest he had to exert conscious effort to
convince himself of the safety of his current surrounding’s. For the order
part, you don't have to be as intently to get the same effect, or to stagnate on
purpose although you can. You're lucky, simply trust your modern, logical human
mind it will eventually work out a thought loop that puts everything in line. The
trick is to shove some doubt in that loop, purify unrealistic anticipations. Until
you accept that the future might not be in your favor, you are still craving an
outcome. Let go of it now. It'll hit harder if you wait until your
disappointment.
You've
enslaved yourself somehow to a fantasy. It keeps on running your day to day,
manifested in subtle behavioral patterns. For instance, people might feel like
you need something from them, and are subconsciously repulsed, all because of
some future expectation you're holding them up to, in your head. Remember that
this is just of a small portion of the 12 rules of life. For those who've
already gone through the book you may notice that I might have added some of my
personal thoughts and examples to the concepts, like the exercise on
expectations, so I consider this Article more of a review than a summary.
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