Book Review: 12 Rules for Life: An Antidote to Chaos by Jordan B. Peterson

Book Review: 12 Rules for Life: An Antidote to Chaos by Jordan B. Peterson

Introduction of Jordan Peterson book 12 rules for life

What does everyone in the modern world need to know? Renowned psychologist Jordan B. Peterson’s answer to this most difficult of questions uniquely combines the hard-won truths of ancient tradition with the stunning revelations of cutting-edge scientific research.

Humorous, surprising, and informative, Dr. Peterson tells us why skateboarding boys and girls must be left alone, what terrible fate awaits those who criticize too easily, and why you should always pet a cat when you meet one on the street.

What does the nervous system of the lowly lobster have to tell us about standing up straight (with our shoulders back) and about success in life? Why did ancient Egyptians worship the capacity to pay careful attention as the highest of gods? What dreadful paths do people tread when they become resentful, arrogant, and vengeful?

Dr. Peterson journeys broadly, discussing discipline, freedom, adventure, and responsibility, distilling the world’s wisdom into 12 practical and profound rules for life. 12 Rules for Life shatters the modern commonplaces of science, faith, and human nature while transforming and ennobling the mind and spirit of its listeners.

About the Author: Jordan Peterson 12 rules for life

Professor of Psychology at the University of Toronto, clinical psychologist, and former professor of psychology at Harvard University. He mainly studies abnormal psychology, social psychology, and personality psychology, and is an expert in the Big Five personality research.

Peterson has co-authored more than a hundred academic papers with colleagues and students at Harvard and the University of Toronto, advancing contemporary understanding of personality, and was a finalist for the prestigious Levenson Teaching Prize while teaching at Harvard. One of three professors at the University of Toronto called “life-changing” by students.

Peterson’s classic “Maps of Meaning,” which rewrote the psychology of religion, was made into a 13-episode hit on PBS. He is known as “Professor Lobster” because of his views on the comparison of lobster and human society.

“The Twelve Rules of Life” is his second book, which has been on the North American bestseller list before it was released, and became a global phenomenon bestseller as soon as it was released.

Peterson grew up in the frigid wilderness of northern Alberta, Canada, and worked as a dishwasher, gas station worker, cook, beekeeper, oil field worker, and railroad worker.

He also teaches mythology to lawyers, doctors, and business people, advises the Secretary-General of the United Nations, provides treatment for clinical patients with depression, obsessive-compulsive disorder, anxiety, and sensory integration disorders, and serves as a consultant to a senior partner in a large Canadian law firm, and lectured widely in North America, Europe, and other places.

The mental health website Peterson founded has helped thousands of people correct character flaws, better understand themselves, and improve their futures.

12 Rules for Life: Jordan Peterson Best Quotes

“Don’t compare your life with others, find solutions to your own life problems and improve your own life.”

People are always at the relatively less ideal point A and are constantly moving towards the better point B, which is more in line with their own value judgments. The world in our eyes is always full of shortcomings and needs to be corrected. Even when the old goal has been reached, we will always go further and propose a new goal, and even when the goal is temporarily satisfied, we will remain curious. The framework of people’s lives defines the present as eternal scarcity and the future as eternal beauty. Because otherwise, a person would be completely incapable of action.”

Our goals can be too high, too low, or too confusing, which can lead to failure and disappointment, even when others see you as a success. So how can we benefit from our own imagination and ability to improve the future, while avoiding the constant devaluation of a less successful and less valuable life in the present?

Perhaps the first thing you need to do is sort yourself out. who are you?

Perhaps happiness is always a process of generation and improvement, rather than the fleeting satisfaction of reaching a goal.

Ask yourself, out of all the chaos in life, is there anything you can and would like to sort out? Do you have the ability and will to fix this seemingly inconspicuous problem? Can you get started now?

Your day, and every other day, is made up of countless small choices and actions, can you try to make one or two better? “Better” here is defined from your own perspective and standards — our talents are all limited, don’t deceive yourself, don’t belittle yourself, and don’t put too much burden on yourself.

Maybe your value system needs to be completely rebuilt, maybe you want something that blinds you to all other possibilities, maybe you’re so clinging to your present desires that you can’t see anything else, including what you really need a thing.

You jealously say “I should have my boss’s job”, and if your boss stays in his place because of his ability, your thoughts will fill you with irritability, displeasure, and disgust.”

But the desire for an unobtainable position won’t help you one bit.

You can tell yourself this: I’m going to make a different plan, I’m going to pursue something that will make my life better, whatever it is, and I’m going to start working on it now. Even if I found out that it wasn’t my boss’s position, I would take it and move on.”

Now your trajectory is completely different. Before you were chasing and longing for something narrow and specific, you were stuck and unhappy because of it. You need to let go, make the necessary sacrifices, and reveal a plethora of possibilities that were once obscured.

If your life really got better, what would it be like? What “better” actually means, maybe you don’t know yet, but that’s okay because when you really want to be better, you will gradually start to understand what better is. You will slowly perceive things that were previously buried in your presuppositions and stereotypes, and you will really begin to learn.

You have to recognize who you are, what you want, and what you are willing to do, and then you will find that the aversion to solving your own unique problems needs to be tailored. — — Quoted from the inner critic of Rule 4: Comparing yourself with yesterday, not with others today.

Jordan Peterson 12 Rules for Life Book Review

JP was a breath of fresh air in this chaotic world, a light I groped in the dark. Combining science and common sense, his writing is extremely convincing, dissecting some very complex and profound problems and exposing the thorns of life in broad daylight. Regardless of whether you have a background in philosophy or psychology, this book will not be difficult to read. This book includes Jordan Peterson’s Twelve Laws of Life, which are good medicine for both individuals and society.

A theme that runs through the book is that life is not so hopeless, that personal change is possible and that life can hopefully get better. There is no doubt that by starting small, you can improve a little bit every day. The essence of life is a tragedy, and the world is not so friendly, but we must treat these problems correctly, instead of blindly playing the role of a victim, like Xianglin’s wife, living in the shadow of the past; or like A giant baby that refuses to grow.

The twelve laws of life, in JP’s own words, are some laws that make you no longer sad, because he himself is a practitioner of these laws, and he is practicing them, so these are not castles in the air. He also admits his own shortcomings and deficiencies very frankly, rather than brag about himself like some authors.

The content of the book is not complicated, it seems to be a simple twelve sentences, but after reading it, it is like reading twelve philosophy books in one breath. Author Jordan B. Peterson is a professor of psychology at the University of Toronto, a clinical psychologist, and a former professor of psychology at Harvard University. He discusses serious survival issues on YouTube, beats various internet celebrities, and has 35 million views. He is also known as “the most influential public intellectual in the West”. I had heard him speak about the book before reading it, but after reading it, I had a deeper understanding.

In fact, many of the truths in the book were vaguely understood before, but I didn’t think about them deeply; there are also some truths that I understand, but I haven’t put them into practice in life. This book gave me the desire to re-examine my life and plan my life again. Acquiring some new knowledge is obviously more helpful to the current state of mind than swiping the phone with anxiety all day long. Here are some of my reading experiences.

The twelve rules in this book have a strong religious meaning. I can basically understand the reasoning behind them when I read them. If you don’t know some relevant knowledge, it will be difficult to understand when you read them, and you will feel that they do not fit well.

1. Stand at attention and keep your head up

A person’s posture and spirit will affect others’ first impression and evaluation of him.

Also read: Sense and Sensibility by Jane Austen

Just remember: if you continue to hang down like a failed lobster, people will look down on you, and the dominance “calculator” in your brain will give you a low score. You’ll have low levels of serotonin, and you’ll be more prone to anxiety and sadness, not being able to defend yourself, and not getting high-quality shelter, resources, and partners.

Positive feedback loops through body language can also occur in social situations. If you’re down and down, you’ll also feel small and frustrated, and the reactions of others will magnify your feelings.

Like lobsters, people evaluate each other based on their body posture. If you appear to be a failure, people will treat you as a failure. If you stand upright, people will treat you differently.

Be careful with your posture and stop wandering with your head down. Step up, look straight ahead, and take risks so your neural pathways are flooded with much-needed serotonin.

There used to be a book called “High Energy Posture”, which came from a TED talk. The core can be summed up in one sentence: Let your posture determine who you are.

2. Be kind to yourself

In primitive times, people understood the world in terms of survival.

Take yourself seriously, redefine yourself, cultivate your personality, choose your goals, and be clear.

What will your future life be like if you take care of yourself seriously?

What career should I choose to become a valuable and beneficial person to society? How can I improve my health, expand my knowledge, and strengthen my physique when I have the time and energy? You need to know where you are before you can plan your future route; you need to know who you are before you can balance your strengths and weaknesses; you need to know where you want to go before you can control the level of chaos in your life and restore order. The divine power that fills the world with hope. You need to know your own direction first so that you can protect yourself in a timely manner, so as not to end up full of complaints and resentment; you need to clarify your principles so that others cannot easily take advantage of you; you need to be strict with self-discipline and keep the promises you made to yourself, and reward yourself in time, so that you can better trust and motivate yourself; you need to aim to become a better person. Good things don’t come automatically, we need to work hard to strengthen ourselves.

Don’t underestimate the power of vision and direction to transform seemingly insurmountable obstacles into wide, unobstructed paths. Take yourself seriously, redefine yourself, cultivate your personality, choose your goals, and be clear.

Nietzsche, the great philosopher of the 19th century, said: “ A man who knows why he lives can endure any kind of life.

When you think about it, you can clearly answer: What is the direction of your life?

It’s easy to know where you should be working and what needs to be done. It is only after I have figured this out that I can achieve freedom of time and freedom of mind.

3. Choose the right friend

When a person has a low sense of self-worth or refuses to take responsibility for their own life, they choose to be friends with people whose lives are already a mess. Bad habits are contagious, but self-discipline and stability are not, because it is much easier to fall than to forge ahead, to stay away from bad friends. If you have different friends, end the relationship, get out of here and go elsewhere, get back on your feet, and then lead by example and inspire others. You are not obligated to support someone who makes the world worse, you should choose friends who are motivated and good for you, not selfish, but to make each other better.

If you’re surrounded by people who support you, they won’t tolerate your cynical or broken-hearted attitude. They will encourage you to be kind to yourself and others, and will discreetly nudge you at the right moment in your determination to take things seriously. On the contrary, people who are not motivated will pass cigarettes to those who have quit smoking, and pour alcohol to those who have quit drinking. They will withdraw their support and company from you because they are jealous of your efforts and success, and sometimes even take the initiative to punish you. . They will press you down with real or fictitious personal experiences, which may seem like a test of your resolve, but more often they really want to hold you back because your progress dwarfs them.

Be friends with people who really want you to be good.

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