Author: Geoff

Creator

Dr Jordan B Peterson, a Canadian clinical psychologist, and professor of psychology at the University of Toronto.

Purpose

The 12 Rules for Life are derived from his best selling book of the same name.

Manifesto

1. Stand up straight with your shoulders back
2. Treat yourself like someone you are responsible for helping
3. Make friends with people who want the best for you
4. Compare yourself to who you were yesterday, not to who someone else is today
5. Do not let your children do anything that makes you dislike them
6. Set your house in perfect order before you criticize the world
7. Pursue what is meaningful (not what is expedient)
8. Tell the truth – or, at least, don’t lie
9. Assume that the person you are listening to might know something you don’t
10. Be precise in your speech
11. Do not bother children when they are skateboarding
12. Pet a cat when you encounter one on the street

Source

Peterson’s Wikipedia page

Comment

For me, there is a wonderful mismatch here. These are the 12 rules from a world-wide best selling book. And yet, they don’t seem that special. I expected they’d be miracle insights and instead they almost seem home-grown, down-to-earth and even folksy. This might be their charm and the reason they have cut through all of the noise out there.

More

The Most Valuable Things Everyone Should Know – a posting of 42 Life Rules on Quora by Peterson that preceded this book.

Related

Lori Deschene – Five Rules for Life

Brian Johnson – Five Rules for Life

Got Funny – The 36 Rules of Life

Charlie Sheen’s Manifesto for Life

Miyamoto Musahi – 21 Rules to Live Your Life – the great Samurai Warrior

Creator

Dr Jordan B Peterson, a Canadian clinical psychologist, and professor of psychology at the University of Toronto. He is also the best-selling author of 12 Rules for Life, which is based on a dozen of these rules.

Peterson’s Wikipedia page

Purpose

Published on Quora in response to the question: What are the most valuable things everyone should know?

Note: This is often spoken of as ‘42 Rules’ even though there are only 40 rules.

Manifesto

1. Tell the truth.
2. Do not do things that you hate.
3. Act so that you can tell the truth about how you act.
4. Pursue what is meaningful, not what is expedient.
5. If you have to choose, be the one who does things, instead of the one who is seen to do things.
6. Pay attention.
7. Assume that the person you are listening to might know something you need to know. Listen to them hard enough so that they will share it with you.
8. Plan and work diligently to maintain the romance in your relationships.
9. Be careful who you share good news with.
10. Be careful who you share bad news with.
11. Make at least one thing better every single place you go.
12. Imagine who you could be, and then aim single-mindedly at that.
13. Do not allow yourself to become arrogant or resentful.
14. Try to make one room in your house as beautiful as possible.
15. Compare yourself to who you were yesterday, not to who someone else is today.
16. Work as hard as you possibly can on at least one thing and see what happens.
17. If old memories still make you cry, write them down carefully and completely.
18. Maintain your connections with people.
19. Do not carelessly denigrate social institutions or artistic achievement.
20. Treat yourself as if you were someone that you are responsible for helping.
21. Ask someone to do you a small favour, so that he or she can ask you to do one in the future.
22. Make friends with people who want the best for you.
23. Do not try to rescue someone who does not want to be rescued, and be very careful about rescuing someone who does.
24. Nothing well done is insignificant.
25. Set your house in perfect order before you criticize the world.
26. Dress like the person you want to be.
27. Be precise in your speech.
28. Stand up straight with your shoulders back.
29. Don’t avoid something frightening if it stands in your way — and don’t do unnecessarily dangerous things.
30. Do not let your children do anything that makes you dislike them.
31. Do not transform your wife into a maid.
32. Do not hide unwanted things in the fog.
33. Notice that opportunity lurks where responsibility has been abdicated.
34. Read something written by someone great.
35. Pet a cat when you encounter one on the street.
36. Do not bother children when they are skateboarding.
37. Don’t let bullies get away with it.
38. Write a letter to the government if you see something that needs fixing — and propose a solution.
39. Remember that what you do not yet know is more important than what you already know.
40. Be grateful in spite of your suffering.

Sources

Quora article: https://www.quora.com/What-are-the-most-valuable-things-everyone-should-know

Reddit background comment: https://www.reddit.com/r/JordanPeterson/comments/75akn0/dr_jordan_petersons_42_rules_for_life_the_origins/

Comment

That’s a relatively long list. My opinion is that if you write too many on a list then you water down your focus. I think there is power in fewer.

Neuroscience tells us that we can only remember a handful of things in our short-term memory – it used to be 7 plus or minus 2 things. Now, it’s believed to be 5 plus or minus 2 things. That may or may not be a good basis for a powerful list.

Also, the secret to writing a short list is to first write a long one – then prune it back until you are left with the ones that strike a chord, fire your joy and make you dance.

More

12 Rules for Life

Creator

Lori Deschene, author of the blog and book Tiny Buddha.

Purpose

It’s a personal manifesto – some guidelines for living life.

Manifesto

1. Be honest with yourself
2. Let yourself be vulnerable
3. Live in accordance with your values
4. See as much as you can of what’s right in front of you
5. Treat yourself like you want others to treat you

PS: Lori tells a beautiful story that when she first wrote her rules for life she wrote ‘Live without rules’ five times. LOL!

Source

https://tinybuddha.com/blog/5-rules-for-life/

Comment

A simple rule based manifesto. What I love about this is that a mere five rules can cover a lot of territory. The key is not to be too specific as in ‘Always eat blueberries on Thursday’. Instead, it pitches at the level of values or general principles.

Contrast this to the Yes Manifesto which has over 50 rules for life (dance and movement). Both strategies can work – choose your best way.

Number 5 stands out for me personally. It’s a wonderful reverse spin on the classic religious moral ‘treat others as you would like them to treat you.’

More

I loved reading Lori’s book, Tiny Buddha. I reviewed it here.