12 Rules for Life: An Antidote to Chaos

by Jordan B. Peterson

every day need to be automatized. They must be turned into stable and reliable habits, so they lose their complexity and gain predictability and simplicity.

The next thing I ask about is breakfast. I counsel my clients to eat a fat and protein-heavy breakfast as soon

as possible after they awaken (no simple carbohydrates, no sugars, as they are digested too rapidly, and produce a blood-sugar spike and rapid dip).

But standing up straight with your shoulders back is not something that is only physical, because you’re not only a body. You’re a spirit, so to speak—a psyche—as well. Standing up physically also implies

and invokes and demands standing up metaphysically. Standing up means voluntarily accepting the burden of Being.

To stand up straight with your shoulders back is to accept the terrible responsibility of life, with eyes wide open.

Speak your mind. Put your desires forward, as if you had a right to them—at least the same right as others. Walk tall and gaze forthrightly ahead. Dare to be dangerous.

lived in Truth; if we spoke the Truth—then we could walk with God once again, and respect ourselves, and others, and the world. Then we might treat ourselves like people we cared for. We might strive to set the

world straight. We might orient it toward Heaven, where we would want people we cared for to dwell, instead of Hell, where our resentment and hatred would eternally sentence everyone.

You have some vital role to play in the unfolding destiny of the world. You are, therefore, morally obliged to take care of yourself. You should take care of, help and be good to yourself the same way you

would take care of, help and be good to someone you loved and valued. You may therefore have to conduct yourself habitually in a manner that allows you some respect for your own Being—and

You need to determine how to act toward yourself so that you are most likely to become

and to stay a good person. It would be good to make the world a better place.

Friendship is a reciprocal arrangement. You are not morally obliged to support someone who is making the world a worse place.

It’s a good thing, not a selfish thing, to choose people who are good for you. It’s appropriate and praiseworthy to associate with people whose

lives would be improved if they saw your life improve...

Make friends with people who want the best for you.

Dare, instead, to be dangerous. Dare to be truthful. Dare to articulate yourself, and express (or at least become aware of)

what would really justify your life.

When you have something to say, silence is a lie—and tyranny feeds on lies. When should you push back against oppression, despite the danger? When you start nursing secret fantasies of revenge; when your life is being poisoned and your imagination fills with the wish to devour and destroy. I had a client decades ago who suffered from severe obsessive-compulsive

You need to know because you can’t fix something if you don’t know it’s broken—and you’re broken. You need an inspector.

Ask yourself: is there one thing that exists in disarray in your life or your situation that you could, and would, set straight?

you, and would you, fix that one thing that announces itself humbly in need of repair? Could you do it now?

Thus, you set the following goal: by the end of the day, I want things in my life to be a tiny bit better than they were this morning. Then you ask yourself, “What

could I do, that I would do, that would accomplish that, and what small thing would I like as a reward?” Then you do what you have decided to do, even if you do it badly. Then you give yourself that damn coffee, in triumph.

What you aim at determines what you see.

Life doesn’t have the problem. You do. At least that realization leaves you with some options. If your life is not going well, perhaps it is your current

knowledge that is insufficient, not life itself. Perhaps your value structure needs some serious retooling. Perhaps what you want is blinding you to what else could be. Perhaps you are holding on to your desires, in the present, so

tightly that you cannot see anything else—even wha...

start treating Old Testament God, with all His terrible and oft-arbitrary-seeming power, as if He could also be New Testament God (even though you understand

Search until you find something that bothers you, that you could fix, that you would fix, and then fix it. That might be enough for the day.

They teach children how to behave so that other people will be able to interact meaningfully and productively with them. It is an act of responsibility to discipline a child.

So, don’t encumber children—or their disciplinarians—with too many rules. That path leads to frustration.

So now we have two general principles of discipline. The first: limit the

rules. The second: use the least force necessary to enforce those rules.

Do not bite, kick or hit, except in self-defence. Do not

torture and bully other children, so you don’t end up in jail. Eat in a civilized and thankful manner, so that people are happy to have you at their house, and pleased to feed you. Learn to share, so other kids will play with

you. Pay attention when spoken to by adults, so they don’t hate you and might therefore deign to teach you something. Go to sleep properly, and peaceably, so that your ...

Take care of your belongings, because you need to learn how and because you’re lucky to have them. Be good company when something fun is happening, so that you’re invited ...

you’re around, so that people will wa...

To unthinkingly parrot the magic line “There is no

excuse for physical punishment”

is also to foster the delusion that teenage devils...

from once-innocent little child-angels. You’re not doing your child any favors by overlooking any misbehavior (particularly i...

Parents should come in pairs so the father of a newborn can watch the new mother so she won’t get worn out and do something desperate after hearing her colicky baby wail from eleven in the evening until five

in the morning for thirty nights in a row.

Here’s a fourth principle, one that is more particularly psychological: parents should understand

their own capacity to be harsh, vengeful, arrogant, resentful, angry and deceitful.

Here’s a fifth and final and most general principle. Parents have a duty to act as proxies for the

real world—merciful proxies, caring proxies—but proxies, nonetheless. This obligation supersedes any responsibility to ensure happiness, foster creativity, or boost self-esteem. It is the primary duty of parents to make