Beyond Order: 12 More Rules For Life

by Jordan B. Peterson

The universal rules of fair play include the ability to regulate emotion and motivation while cooperating and competing in pursuit of the goal during the game (that is part and parcel of being able to play at all), as well as the ability and will to establish reciprocally beneficial interactions across time and situation, as we already discussed. And life is not simply a game, but a series of games, each of which has something in common (whatever defines a game) and something unique (or there would be no reason for multiple games). At minimum, there is a starting point (kindergarten, a 0–0 score, a first date, an entry-level job) that needs to be improved upon; a procedure for enacting that improvement; and a desirable goal (graduation from high school, a winning score, a permanent romantic relationship, a prestigious career). Because of that commonality, there is an ethic—or more properly, a meta-ethic—that emerges, from the bottom up, across the set of all games. The best player is therefore not the winner of any given game but, among many other things, he or she who is invited by the largest number of others to play the most extensive series of games. It is for this reason, which you may not understand explicitly at the time, that you tell your children: “It’s not whether you win or lose. It’s how you play the game!”