Jordan Peterson’s 12 Rules of Life is one of those books whose title gives you exactly what it promises – twelve rules you can print out on a piece of paper, pin up on your bulletin board, and check in on each day as a reminder of what you want life to be all about. However, the book does not answer one question I anticipate many might have about the work – what is at the core of these rules? As I reviewed my notes with this question in mind, I dug out a few insights that I feel form one likely answer to this question.
Peterson points out in one passage that people should aim for a life of meaning constructed on a widely applicable foundation of simple behaviors. He includes don’t lie, fixing what you can, and paying attention on this list. In short, he writes that what you aim at determines what you see and that people should aim upward at making the world a better place.
This might seem a ludicrously simple summation for a four hundred page book – make the world a better place. But given that reaching for an ideal is often more than sufficient to give life meaning, I think it is a fitting way to describe the soul of the book. Starting small is a great bit of tactical wisdom for this strategy. We should all wake up, consider how life can be a little better at the same time tomorrow, and devote the day to reaching the vision. If we find something that bothers us, we should fix it. If fixing the problem proves too challenging or too uninteresting, we should set our sights lower and find an easier or more interesting problem.
A life devoted to incrementally making the world better by fixing problems within our scope strikes me as a noble ambition. Peterson notes that good ambitions develop character and ability ahead of status and power. I felt this was an important observation in the context of meeting life’s challenges without succumbing to common temptations and turning our lives into a comfortably constructed lie. A truthful existence is not aimed at a preconceived ideal but rather demands constant reevaluation based on what we learn every single day. In this state of constant learning and growth, the stability suggested by Peterson’s vision of the appropriate ambitions and ideals is a vital reminder of how to stay grounded and keep our energies aimed at the right efforts.
