12 rules for life - An antidote to chaos

Before I actually start introducing my personal hell and this books content, let me talk a bit about my Lord and Savior, Jordan B. Peterson. If for whatever reason you wish to skip excessive reading, scroll down for the rules and at least you might pick up on some golden nuggets that could help you with your life. My Lord is a Canadian clinical (personality) psychologist. He himself has been on anti-depressants for over 30 years while treating others. "Now how can I worship a person who is supposed to treat the mind's illnesses when he himself has been living in chaos himself?", you might ask. Reason being, his family has had to deal with an extreme form of autoimmune diseases. Mikhaila Peterson his daughter suffered minute after minute for over decades. Having her hips and ankle replaced due to rapid bone disintegration caused by this disease. Imagine being a parent seeing your child suffer until the light in her eyes starts to dim, and she begs you to save or release her out of excruciating misery. You are incapable of such and feebly stare at her decay and see her transition into a vegetative state of being. Of course many more dreadful events have bestowed upon them. Nevertheless, the Petersons kept striving onward to seek wisdom on how to live life without crumbling under its devastating forces. Now, father, free of anti-depressants after a simple change of diet, and daughter who came up with the idea to swap to a carnivore diet, inspire millions of people all over the world to strengthen their mental health, including me. I myself had been through a personalized hell for over eight years. This all came to an end the moment I decided to blindly follow Peterson's Twelve Commandments. This led me to consume another fifteen books within the year. It might seem little to nothing to an avid reader. I should have mentioned that a side of 'The Law of Mentalism' by Victor Segno, I have never read more than 100 pages in a book nor finished any. So, after 23 years, my second book has been taken into my logos. Everything, and I mean EVERYTHING, changed after consistently trying to follow these set of rules. More on my changes in upcoming blogs. Mind you, I'm not a religious man, but if I were to be, then obviously JPB is my Lord and his book '12 rules for life' is my collection of sacred texts and scriptures. The set goes as follows: 1 Stand up straight with your shoulders straight A good posture leads to better physical development, prevents unnecessary aches in the future and actually tricks the brain to help you become more confident even though you aren't. The latter is an analogy of the 'Face Feedback Hypothesis'. Don't believe in any of this? Do it anyway, see how you feel after only couple of weeks and prove us wrong. 2 Treat yourself like someone you are responsible for helping Have you noticed how you are, in most cases, eager to help out those close to you and/or others, but rarely actually work on helping yourself? Have you noticed how you treat a dog or cat, any pet more warmly than you treat yourself? It's time to put yourself as a true protagonist, step up and make an effort for yourself more than just once in a while. You don't really hate yourself and want to suffer, do you? 3 Befriend people who want the best for you It's time to let go of those who are overly needy, preventing you of progressing. Break the chains of the past, break out of those cages in which others place you in. You need people in your life that have a progressive mind set, not a fixed one. Be surrounded by love and positivity not by energy sucking vampires. 4 Compare yourself to who you were yesterday, not the useless person you are today Other people have their own story to worry about, and so do you. Quit wanting to be someone else and start to be the best version of YOU. Would you rather be someone you are not and constantly fight insecurities on whether you've finally become that other person? Or would you rather be you, feel exactly how you should feel and eventually reach your max potential? 5 Do not let your children do anything that makes you dislike them Having issues with others and as time goes by you become more and more intolerant till the point of forcing down your collection of chips on your shoulder in their throat? Well, don't you think this could've been prevented if you had classically or operant conditioned their behavior in such a way that what they do, which you dislike, decreased in frequencies? Obviously, if you could go back in time you'd stop them. 6 Set your house in order before you criticize the world Peterson is well known for his quote "Clean your room!". It's an excellent way of expressing the irony in which you think yourself capable of saving the world, doing things better than others yet can't even fix your damn room. If your room has been neat since you've come to learn how to keep it tidy, how bout the rest of your house? The neighborhood? Start with your micro systems move on to meso-, exo- and then finally macrosystems. Micro refers to your own household, family and friends while macro refers to bigger systems such as politics, law, worldly values etc. 7 Pursue what is meaningful, not what is expedient Extrinsic values such as more money, a promotion, the newest iPhone or other latest trends are all nice and what not. But, to really feel fulfilled in the long run, you might consider playing for the end game. Short term goals lead to short term satisfying gratification. Long term goals have lasting effects with a near guarantee for success, wealth and health as a byproduct anyway.

8 Tell the truth. Or at least don’t lie Live a life of integrity or be consumed by suppressed emotions and a flood of cortisol induced by stress. Creating lies and maintaining them in a structure which can easily collapse like a house of cards, requires much more cognitive energy and life force than telling the truth whether it be to others or to yourself.

9 Assume the person you are listening to knows something you don’t It is better to sit out your turn in a conversation in order to gather as much data the other can provide you with. This data will be a tool for you which you later on can discard or actually utilize depending on your needs. It's better to have more items in your toolbox than to have to little. 10 Be precise in your speech "Language takes the chaos and orders them into things" is what Peterson said in an interview on 'Rubin Report'. With this he explains that we use language to create structures to organize anything in life. This means we can use language to organize our thoughts and emotions so others, and we ourselves understand the meaning of these and what to do with them. No need to beat around the bush, just say what you have to say. Just make sure they're comprehensible. 11 Do not bother children while they are skateboarding Sometimes we just have to let people experience mistakes and painful events. More often than not we learn lessons and increase our skills. If our biologically programmed excitement for discovery/exploration is inhibited, we become weak and have little experience relevant to the restricted areas. "Let live and let die." 12 Pet a cat when you encounter one in the street Have you forgotten to acknowledge the little things in life? Perhaps a fear for certain animals prevented you from satisfying the urge to pet them. Now you missed out on an opportunity to conquer those suppressing thoughts and accompanying emotions, plus you missed out on a little joy.