Beyond Order
12 More Rules for Life
Jordan B. Peterson spent a couple decades as a clinical psychologist and a professor at Harvard and the University of Toronto before publishing his first book 12 Rules for Life which has sold more than 5 million copies worldwide. He’s reached millions of people via his YouTube channel and podcasts. His 1999 book Maps of Meaning revolutionized the psychology of religion. The New York Times described him as “The most influential public intellectual in the Western world right now." While Peterson can be considered polarizing and controversial, the wisdom in this book is profound. As you'd expect, it's PACKED with Big Ideas and we're barely going to scratch the surface in this Note. I’m excited to share a handful of my favorites so let’s jump straight in!
Big Ideas
- 12 More Rules For LifeHere They Are.
- Rule II: The Heroic PrincipleImagine Who You Could Be...
- Rule IV: Taking Responsibility + Hitting TargetsAnd Hitting Targets.
- Making (Not Finding) Your Soul MateIs Made Not Found.
- Rule XII: Be Grateful In Spite of Your SufferingIn Spite of Your Suffering.
“Like 12 Rules for Life, the current volume provides an explication of rules drawn from a longer list of 42, originally published and popularized in the Q and A website Quora. Unlike my previous book, Beyond Order explores as its overarching theme how the dangers of too much security and control might be profitably avoided. Because what we understand is insufficient (as we discover when things we are striving to control nonetheless go wrong around us), we need to keep one foot within order while stretching the other tentatively into the beyond. And so we are driven to explore and find the deepest of meanings in standing on the frontier, secure enough to keep our fear under control but learning, constantly learning, as we face what we have not yet made peace with or adapted to. It is this instinct of meaning—something far deeper than mere thought—that orients us properly in life, so that we do not become overwhelmed by what is beyond us, or equally dangerously, stultified and stunted by dated, too narrow, or too pridefully paraded systems of value and belief.”
~ Jordan B. Peterson from Beyond Order
Jordan B. Peterson.
He spent a couple decades as a clinical psychologist and a professor at Harvard and the University of Toronto before publishing his first book 12 Rules for Life (check out those Notes), which has sold more than five million copies worldwide.
He’s reached millions of people via his YouTube channel and podcasts and his 1999 book Maps of Meaning revolutionized the psychology of religion. The New York Times described him as “The most influential public intellectual in the Western world right now” while David Brooks, author of The Road to Character and The Second Mountain, tells us: “The Peterson way is a harsh way, but it is an idealistic way.”
This is the second Note we’ve created on one of Peterson’s books. We started with 12 Rules for Life. I loved that book and read this one when it came out a few years ago. I loved it as well. It’s another extraordinarily powerful book. (Get a copy here.)
Note1: Yes, I know Peterson is polarizing and controversial. And... The wisdom in this book is profound.
Note2: As I read this book, I thought of Yuval Noah Harari—another one of my favorite writers. Both Harari and Peterson have a penetrating, logical coherence to their writing and they both address very important themes in an iconoclastic style. (Check out our Notes on Harari’s Sapiens, Homo Deus, and 21 Lessons for the 21st Century for more of his perspective.)
As you’d expect, the book is PACKED (!) with Big Ideas and we’re barely going to scratch the surface of its wisdom. I’m excited to share a handful of my favorites so let’s jump straight in.
We’ll start with a little Q and A from Professor Peterson and map out the 12 Rules.
Download MP3
Download PDFThat is the moral of both narratives: follow the rules until you are capable of being a shining exemplar of what they represent, but break them when those very rules now constitute the most dire impediment to the embodiment of their central virtues.
Get the Book12 More Rules For Life
“Question: Who are you—or, at least, who could you be? Answer: Part of the eternal force that constantly confronts the terrible unknown, voluntarily; part of the eternal force that transcends naïveté and becomes dangerous enough, in a controlled manner, to understand evil and beard it in its lair; and part of the eternal force that faces chaos and turns it into productive order, or that takes order that has become too restive, reduces it to chaos, and renders it productive once again.”
Let’s start by taking a quick look at the second set of 12 Rules. Here they are:
Rule I | Do not carelessly denigrate social institutions or creative achievement ← Before moving *beyond* order, honor the existing institutions/individuals that have served humanity.
Rule II | Imagine who you could be, and then aim single-mindedly at that ← We’ll talk more about this in a moment, Hero.
Rule III | Do not hide unwanted things in the fog ← Maintain faith while confronting the brutal facts of your reality.
Rule IV | Notice that opportunity lurks where responsibility has been abdicated ← Step up and into the vacuum of leadership by taking full responsibility for your life.
Rule V | Do not do what you hate ← Do work that matters and do what you are here to do; do not betray your future self.
Rule VI | Abandon ideology ← Have some humility, recognize the partial truths in all perspectives and commit to a life of meaning and service.
Rule VII | Work as hard as you possibly can on at least one thing and see what happens ← Enter: Mastery.
Rule VIII | Try to make one room in your home as beautiful as possible ← Beauty helps make life worth living.
Rule IX | If old memories upset you, write them down carefully and completely ← Integrate your past to create a coherent narrative for our present while creating an inspiring future (see William Damon’s A Round of Golf with My Father for more).
Rule X | Plan and work diligently to maintain the romance in your relationship ← This is the chapter that most changed my life; in short: FULLY (!) COMMIT.
Rule XI | Do not allow yourself to become resentful, deceitful, or arrogant ← “Replace anger with gratitude and truth.”
Rule XII | Be grateful in spite of your suffering ← As Viktor Frankl would say, in spite of all the challenges we face, Nevertheless, say yes to life.
P.S. In case you forgot, here are the original 12 Rules for Life:
Rule I | Stand up straight with your shoulders backRule II | Treat yourself like someone you are responsible for helpingRule III | Make friends with people who want the best for youRule IV | Compare yourself to who you were yesterday, not to who someone else is todayRule V | Do not let your children do anything that makes you dislike themRule VI | Set your house in perfect order before you criticize the worldRule VII | Pursue what is meaningful (not what is expedient)Rule VIII | Tell the truth—or, at least, don’t lieRule IX | Assume that the person you are listening to might know something you don’tRule X | Be precise in your speechRule XI | Do not bother children when they are skateboarding ← Moral of this section? Life demands challenges. An overprotected human is weak. We want to be strong. Therefore, we must be willing to stretch ourselves and do “dangerous” things.Rule XII | Pet a cat when you encounter one on the street ← This a tongue-in-cheek title. Basic idea: Appreciate how awesome life is and how blessed we are.
The hero is the individual at the peak, the victor, the champion, the wit, the eventually successful and deserving underdog, the speaker of the truth under perilous circumstances, and more.
Heat and pressure transform the base matter of common coal into the crystalline perfection and rare value of the diamond. The same can be said of a person.
Rule II: The Heroic Principle
“The basic story is this: when order (Apsu) is carelessly threatened or destroyed, the terrible forces of chaos from which the world was originally derived appear once again in their most destructive, monstrous, predatory disguise. Then a hero, representing the highest of values, must arise or be elected to confront this chaotic force. He does so successfully, deriving or producing something of great worth. What the hero represents is the most important part of the great forces that make up the human psyche. To think of it another way: the hero is the embodied principle of action and perception that must rule over all the primordial psychological elements of lust, rage, hunger, thirst, terror, and joy. For chaos to remain effectively at bay (or, even better, tamed and therefore harnessed), this heroic principle must be regarded as the most important of all things that can organize and motivate mankind. This means, at least, that it must be continually acted out, which is what ‘regarded as important’ actually means.”
That’s from Rule II: “Imagine who you could be, and then aim single-mindedly at that.”
(btw: I got goosebumps just TYPING that.)
I will repeat, this time in all caps:
IMAGINE WHO YOU COULD BE, AND THEN AIM SINGLE-MINDEDLY AT THAT.
Note: After reviewing the table of contents, I flipped to this section and started the book here.
The passage above comes from a sub-section entitled: “The Emergence of the Virtuous Hero: Who You Could Be.”
(btw: I just got goosebumps AGAIN typing *that* phrase out.)
My only edit to that would be this: “The Emergence of the Virtuous Hero: Who You MUST Be.”
As Abraham Maslow taught us: “What one CAN be, one MUST be.”
I offer that you CAN show up heroically. And, therefore, you MUST—not just for your own self-actualization but so that we can confront the extraordinary, historically-significant challenges we face today.
We each must quit looking outside of ourselves for the hero who will save the day. We must look in the mirror and then, most importantly, DO THE HARD WORK to forge the antifragile confidence we need to become the heroes we are capable of being.
As you know if you’ve been following along, I tattooed my left forearm with the word HEROIC. I think Peterson is absolutely right that “the hero represents the most important part of the great forces that make up the human psyche” and that “this heroic principle must be regarded as the most important of all things that can organize and motivate mankind.”
We need you to step up and give us all you’ve got.
Imagine who you could be, and then aim single-mindedly at that.
Not someday.
TODAY.
P.S. Let’s review this passage for a moment longer: “For chaos to remain effectively at bay (or, even better, tamed and therefore harnessed), this heroic principle must be regarded as the most important of all things that can organize and motivate mankind.”
When I read that line about the chaotic power (within and outside ourselves) that must be “tamed” and “harnessed,” I thought of Eric Butterworth and his profound wisdom from Discover the Power Within You.
Here’s how he puts it: “The Greek word, praeis, which we translate as ‘meek,’ has the connotation ‘tamed,’ from the standpoint of harnessing that which is wild and unrestrained. Niagara Falls is an example of raw and unrestrained power. Tremendous forces are involved as the Niagara River dashes madly over the Falls. This vast energy was wasted for millions of years until we built several large power plants to harness the power for electricity. Today the Falls have been ‘tamed’ as the water turns great turbines to generate electricity for many Eastern cities. ...
Meekness is a sensitiveness or surrender of consciousness to the influence of something. When Jesus says, ‘Blessed are the meek’ He doesn’t mean surrender to people but to God. The best conductor of electricity is the substance that is least resistant to the flow of the electric current. Likewise, the best conductor of divine power is the person who is nonresistant to the flow of divine power. This attitude comes from a conviction that God is always the answer to human needs, and a willingness to submit wholeheartedly to the flow of the Spirit in and through us.”
We’ll wrap this Idea up by ending with Peterson. Again, he tells us that if we want to actually embody the virtuously Heroic: “This means, at least, that it must be continually acted out, which is what ‘regarded as important’ actually means.”
In other words, if we REALLY regard this work as important, we need to actually do the hard work and move from Theory to PRACTICE to Mastery Together TODAY.
I repeat: “Imagine who you could be, and then aim single-mindedly at that.”
Imagine who you could be, and then aim single-mindedly at that.
I have never met anyone who was satisfied when they knew they were not doing everything they should be doing.
Work as hard as you possibly can on one thing and see what happens.
Rule IV: Taking Responsibility + Hitting Targets
“The idea that life is suffering is a relatively universal truism of religious thinking. This is the first of the Four Noble Truths of Buddhism as well as a key Hindu concept. There is a tradition that the ancient word for suffering—dukkha (from the Pali language) or duhkha (from Sanskrit)—is derived from dus (bad) and kha (hole)—particularly the hole in a horse-drawn cart wheel, through which the axle passes. The proper place for such a hole is dead center, right on target. The ride is likely to be very bumpy, otherwise—with the bumps directly proportional in magnitude to the degree of the offset. This is quite reminiscent to me, of the Greek term hamartia, which is frequently translated as ‘sin,’ in the context of Christian thought.
Hamartia was originally an archery term, and it meant to miss the mark or target. There are many ways that a target can be missed. Frequently, in my clinical practice—and in my personal life—I observed that people did not get what they needed (or, equally importantly perhaps, what they wanted) because they never made it clear to themselves or others what that was. It is impossible to hit a target, after all, unless you aim at it.”
That’s from the chapter on Rule IV: “Notice that opportunity lurks where responsibility has been abdicated.”
Want to suffer? Miss the mark. Or, worse yet, don’t even HAVE a target at which you are deliberately aiming your life force.
Aristotle said that we are teleological beings. We need clear TARGETS at which to aim our life force. Without taking aim at the PROPER target, we will suffer—which begs the most important question: What is the proper target at which we should aim our energy?
As you’d expect, Peterson has an answer for that question. And, as you’d expect, it’s in line with what we talk about all day every day. In short, he tells us that the highest good is exactly what Aristotle said was the summum bonum or greatest good: Become the best version of yourself in service to something bigger than yourself.
He tells us: “What is the antidote to the suffering and malevolence of life? The highest possible goal. What is the prerequisite to the pursuit of the highest possible goal? Willingness to adopt the maximum degree of responsibility—and this includes the responsibilities that others disregard or neglect.”
Plus: “Your life becomes meaningful in precise proportion to the depths of the responsibility you are willing to shoulder. That is because you are now genuinely involved in making things better. You are minimizing the unnecessary suffering. You are encouraging those around you by example and word.”
THAT is what it means to be Heroic. Let’s take clear aim at that Target. And hit it. TODAY.
Learn from the past. Or repeat its horrors, in imagination, endlessly.
Without clear, well-defined, and non-contradictory goals, the sense of positive engagement that makes life worthwhile is very difficult to obtain. Clear goals limit and simplify the world, as well, reducing uncertainty, anxiety, shame, and the self-devouring physiological forces unleashed by stress.
Making (Not Finding) Your Soul Mate
“Do you really want to keep asking yourself for the rest of your life—because you would always have the option to leave—if you made the right choice? In all likelihood, you did not. There are seven billion people in the world. At least a hundred million (let us say) might have been good partners for you. You certainly did not have time to try them out, and the probability that you found the theoretically optimal person approaches zero. But you do not find so much as make, and if you do not know that you are in real trouble. Furthermore, if you have an escape route, there will not be enough heat generated in the chamber you find yourself jointly trapped in to catalyze the change necessary in both of you—the maturation, the development of wisdom—because maturation and the development of wisdom require a certain amount of suffering, and suffering is escapable as long as there is an out.”
That’s from Rule X: “Plan and work diligently to maintain the romance in your relationship.”
I found the entire book deeply compelling. But, it was the wisdom from this chapter that I found most life-changing. Why? Because I finally (!) officially sealed the remaining sliver of an escape route I had kept open in my mind in my relationship with Alexandra.
When things had gotten *really* challenging with Alexandra over the first 15 years we’d been together, there was often a voice in my head that would kick in and tell me that maybe I made a mistake. Maybe we weren’t quite as great of a fit for one another as we thought. Maybe we’d both be happier with someone else.
I could easily rationalize the potential dissolution of our relationship as best for both of us.
To state it mildly, that wasn’t helpful. (Laughing.)
Peterson BRILLIANTLY discusses the inherent challenges of ANY significant relationship while establishing the critical importance of an ABSOLUTE, ALL IN commitment to our relationship to create the proper pressure to ensure that true growth can occur. (With obvious asterisks for circumstances in which it is *not* the wisest course to preserve the relationship.)
It’s hard to put into words just how deeply this subtle shift impacted me a few years ago—helping me go from 99.13% committed to 101% all in, TRULY non-negotiable committed.
Although Alexandra and I talked about it in Love 101, the truth of Leo Buscaglia’s wisdom from his great book Love has reached me at a deeper level than ever before. Let’s remember: “One does not fall ‘in’ or ‘out’ of love. One grows in love.”
“Soul mates”? They are more MADE than found.
Why would you possibly assume that something as complex as maintaining a marriage could be managed without commitment, practice, and effort?
Rule XII: Be Grateful In Spite of Your Suffering
“Despite this, you can remain grateful, because that is the intrepid attitude toward life and its difficulties. You are grateful not because you are naive, but because you have decided to put a hand forward to encourage the best in yourself, and the state, and the world. You are grateful, in the same manner, not because suffering is absent, but because it is valiant to remember what you have and what you may still be offered—and because the proper thankful attitude toward that existence and possibility positions you better than any other attitude toward the vicissitudes of existence.
To be grateful for your family is to remember to treat them better. They could cease to exist at any moment. To be grateful for your friends is to awaken yourself to the necessity of treating them properly, given the comparative unlikelihood of friendship itself. To be grateful to your society is to remind yourself that you are the beneficiary of tremendous effort on the part of those who predeceased us, and left this amazing framework of social structure, ritual, culture, art, technology, power, water, and sanitation so that our lives could be better than theirs.
The temptation to become embittered is great and real. It requires a genuine moral effort not to take that path.”
That’s from the chapter on Rule #12: “Be grateful in spite of your suffering.”
It’s easy to feel overwhelmed by the imperfections of our world and to become bitter as a result. Peterson tells us we must not allow ourselves to succumb to that path. We must have the courage and the love to remain grateful. In fact, he tells us that courage plus love is gratitude in action.
As we’ve discussed, Robert Emmons, the leading scholar on the science of gratitude tells us that the opposite of gratitude is entitlement. And, that the antidote to entitlement is humility.
In Gratitude Works!, Emmons tells us: “The more I contemplate the requirements for cultivating gratitude, the more I am convinced of the necessity of humility. In gratitude and humility we turn to realities outside of ourselves. We become aware of our limitations and our need to rely on others. In gratitude and humility, we acknowledge the myth of self-sufficiency. We look upward and outward to the sources that sustain us. Becoming aware of realities greater than ourselves shields us from the illusion of being self-made, being here on this planet by right—expecting everything and owing nothing. The humble person says that life is a gift to be grateful for, not a right to be claimed. Humility ushers in a grateful response.”
Here’s to keeping this wisdom in mind as we strive to meet life’s challenges head on and serve our families, communities, countries and world Heroically.
It is that combination of Truth, Courage, and Love comprising the Ideal, whose active incarnation in each individual does in fact take the potential of the future and make the best of it.
About the author
