On the surface, this rule seems a bit odd. You have always heard the “Golden Rule”, treat others the way you want to be treated, from everyone throughout your life. However, Rule #2 tells you to treat yourself the way you treat someone you were responsible for helping, essentially a reversal of the “Golden Rule”. This seems a bit too obvious to have to state, especially in a book with only 12 rules, so why does it need to be stated? Well, let’s get into the science.

When talking about Rule #2, Jordan Peterson writes, “People are better at filling and properly administering prescription medication to their pets than to themselves. That’s not good. Even from your pet’s perspective, it’s not good. Your pet probably loves you, and would be happier if you took your medication, if you are alive, if you are healthy. It’s difficult to conclude anything from this set of except that people appear to love their dogs, cats, ferrets, and birds more than themselves. How horrible is that? How much shame must exist for something like that to be true? What could it be about people that makes them prefer their pets to themselves?” As much of an exaggeration as this sounds, it is actually backed up in many studies and polls. According to a poll conducted by NutriSense, many pet owners are “more likely to take care of their pets than themselves”. Think about it, when was the last time you worried and went to the doctor for a small bit of pain or a little cough, and when was the last time you worried and rushed to the vet because of the smallest thing off about your pet? I could bet a lot of the latter over the former

Peterson also goes on to relate this rule to the story of the Garden of Eden in the Bible and the difference between humans and animals. This story is about a snake (the Devil) who tricks Eve into taking and eating fruit from the “Tree of Knowledge”, which was the one rule God gave to Adam and Eve. Adam and Eve both gained self-consciousness after eating the fruit and realized that they were naked. Having realized this, they hid from God when he called Adam for their daily walk.

Animals, however, that do not possess self-consciousness act by nature, that being to reproduce and survive. They treat themselves as someone they are responsible for helping (their kids) by being in peak physical shape and providing, never second-guessing themselves because it is their nature.

Humans on the other hand constantly second-guess themselves. We are putting ourselves down and constantly making mistakes, as the saying goes, “your only human”. Due to our self-consciousness, we are able to know and remember all of the bad things we have done throughout life, which then changes our brain chemistry to think that we are worse than the person next to us.

The reason this rule seems so odd to us is because consciously or subconsciously, we believe we are not of value, and in turn, we treat ourselves with the same mindset. We eat junk food when we would tell a person we are responsible for that they need to eat healthy and feed them vegetables. We sit at home and watch TV for hours when we would tell others that they need to exercise and send them to the gym. That is the true challenge of this rule. It’s hard to treat yourself better than you believe you deserve, because how are you ever gonna be capable of being responsible for and treating someone well if you aren’t treating yourself the same way. Why else would flight attendants tell you to secure your own breathing mask first before helping others?

While I’m not sure I can offer as deep of an analysis as last week, I will try my best to glean some information hidden between the lines. This rule seems and is one of the most reasonable and understandable of the rules written by Jordan Petterson, but is also one of the hardest to follow.

Many people are sociable and are able to make many friends wherever they go. However, are these friends truly friends, and do they truly want what’s best for you? Well, let’s look at science again…

According to a transcript from the podcast Am I Normal?, the host, Mona Chalabi, mentions the idea of “Dunbar’s number”. This number is the idea of how many relationships your brain can handle and put the number near 100 and 250. While this number seems high, this covers a wide range of relationships, from your brother to the cashier you remember the name of because you’re too socially awkward to go to anyone else.

Back to the main idea, the majority of people are able to make a fair amount of friends (Dunbar puts the number around 50 friends) but when you make friends it’s hard to do a background check and an interview before a relationship forms. This in turn can cause a myriad of problems, ranging from manipulation, to putting you down, to even using you as comedic relief. This is where the hard part comes of the rule comes in.

Friendship breakups are hard. Friends are people who have spent time with and assume you can rely on for emotional support and many other things as reported in an article from Women’s Health.

Due to the inability to check your friends before making them and having your brain form that connection, it is extremely tough to follow this rule.

So what can you do and how do you know what friends do or do not fit into this idea of “wanting the best for you”? Well, there are some simple tests you can run your brain through if you truly want to check.

Test 1: Think back to a time when they told you your idea or plan was, to use extremely harsh words, dumb 🙂 A friend who wants the best for you wouldn’t let you go through with an idea that is obviously stupid and bad for you, or at the very least, would advise against doing that action.

Test 2: Look back to when you were used as the butt of a joke. When you think of one, think of that person and try to count how many times they have made you the butt of their joke. (Also use the context of the situation)

Anyways, after making a mountain out of the molehill of keeping good friends, I hope this provided some help to someone and maybe, just maybe, gives you the strength to leave your bad “friendship”.

Another kind of obvious rule presented by Mr. Peterson, but have you ever stopped to think about something like this? While I know that this rule doesn’t apply to many of the people who will read this, it still helps to think about this idea early.

As someone who is not a parent but hopefully will be able to be one in the future, this chapter was captivating and was more practical than it was intellectual. In this regard, I would recommend this chapter as one of the most enjoyable and interesting due a lot less science jargon.

Peterson described the way two-year-olds act in this chapter mentioning how – Screaming, kicking, being violent beyond measure, being angry, being impulsive, and stealing – are very common forms of outbursts. Now, why would sweet little kids act this way? Well, it is for them to be able to test the true limits of permissible behavior. Infants are looking to discover the invisible “line in the sand” between what is okay, and what is not okay. Of course, it is the parent’s job to enforce and instill that boundary.

Most infants will at some point cry not out of sadness or fear, but cry because of anger. Not getting the toy or food they wanted is a common event that results in this. This form of crying does not sound or look the same as crying out of fear or sadness and it is mostly an act of attempted dominance by the baby. The infant wants to see if he can dominate and control his parent, and this should be dealt with in a proper manner before the ideals are imprinted onto the moldable mind of a baby.

Peterson also wrote that “If a child has not been taught how to behave properly by the age of four, it will forever be difficult for him or her to make friends” So good luck with that anxiety and no pressure.

Children can be taught through positively-reinforce good behavior in the form of treats, and through negatively-reinforce bad behavior in the form of punishments (Yes, like a dog, but what works, works) Peterson has two maxims. Firstly to limit the rules to make them simpler for the young child to understand, and secondly to use the least force necessary to enforce those rules so as to not make the child you are not trying to dislike, start to dislike you.

The most important thing to take away from this chapter is that parents have the ability to dislike and resent their own children. A clear example of this is a pair of “nice and patient” parents who have just failed to prevent a large tantrum in public at the commissary, and then giving their child the “cold shoulder” 20 minutes later when he comes up to his parents to display his latest accomplishment. Not only is this extremely confusing for the kid and poorly reinforces the needed lessons, it is also very sad for the child who won’t be able to develop properly.

At first glance, this may seem obvious. Of course you shouldn’t lie, lying is bad, however with most things, it is much easier said than done.

Now the question is why do you lie? You, yes you, why do you lie? While I’m sure there are many reasons to lie, PhycoloGenie breaks it down nicely saying “Lying can be broadly classified into 25 different types; the common ones being, bluffing, exaggeration, jocose lie, polite lie, perjury, white lie, lying-in-trade, noble lie, etc. Researchers have spent a lot of time trying to solve the mystery and reasons for lying. Lying is morally wrong and is always discouraged. But, unfortunately, it is quite commonplace and comes naturally to human beings”

However, almost all of the examples listed are of lying to others, when a much bigger problem is when you lie to yourself. ShortForm writes

“You may believe that your truth is the only truth and that no amount of new knowledge can change what you believe. That all-important facts have been discovered, and that everything will work out perfectly.

Your lie may begin with protecting yourself from reality. You may believe reality is intolerable and must be distorted. You want to avoid that short-term pain. But after a certain point, the lies take on a life of their own. First, you start with a little lie, then support it with further little lies. Then you distort your thinking to avoid the shame of those lies. Then those lies become necessary and become ritualized into unconscious action. The longer you lie, the more you believe it, and the harder it is to undo”. Lying to yourself seems to have much more severe consequences on not only yourself but on those around you.

Additionally, let’s take a closer look at the title, “Tell the Truth – Or At Least Don’t Lie”. Now, what could this mean, they sound like the same things. However, when taking a closer look, they are anything but.

As shown before, there are many kinds of lying, but one of the most common is the lie of omission. With these types of lies, you may not be trying to actively mislead people, but you achieve the same result as a lie.

To be honest, I use this type more than I would like to admit. It’s easy to use this kind of lie to lie to yourself and play semantic games for example if you stole someone’s pencil and hid it and that person asks “Do you have my pencil?” you would say that you don’t have it because it’s not physically on you, but it is still a lie because you know what was really being asked.

 In another case, if someone does something you don’t like to you, choosing not to confront them about it is still lying – you’re choosing to act inauthentically and not in line with your beliefs. If you consistently avoid these kinds of conflicts, you don’t complain when you are mistreated, and you suppress your own ideas, you are still lying to yourself even if you don’t see it. This in turn makes you feel weak because there is little meaning to your existence. By not speaking up and lying to yourself that it’s all ok, you’ve become a tool for other people and no longer have your independence.

In the end, whether lying to yourself or someone else, lying is bad for you and any relationships you hold with those you lie too. So, tell the truth, or at least don’t lie.

This rule is one of the most easiest-sounding rules, however, it is one of the most difficult to complete effectively. This rule can also be taken in two different ways.

The first is through seeing the house as actually your house. To look at the world and say how horrible it is and how justice moves slowly and the world is getting ruined by climate change, first look at your own house. Do you do laundry and then leave the clothes for a bit before putting them away? Is everything in your house always clean and shiny?

It is very easy to talk about other places and people and completely ignore how you live and act in comparison. A great parable for this is found in the Bible in Matthew 7:3-5 says “And why do you look at the speck in your brother’s eye, but do not consider the plank in your own eye? Or how can you say to your brother, “Let me remove the speck from your eye”; and look, a plank is in your own eye?” showing how easy it is to criticize others and not look at yourself first and see what you can do to better yourself and the place around you.

The way of interpreting this rule is through the idea of your house as your own ability to do things. For example, Are you working hard at your relationships? Your job? Outside of work to improve yourself? Are you taking complete advantage of all the opportunities that are given to you?

It’s easy to criticize others’ success and say how things are unfair, when at the same time you sit at home and play videogames in all of your free time, or go out to the bar and get drunk every chance you get instead of actually working to be on par with those you envy.

It is easy to say that the world is dirty and nothing gets done when you wait till the next day to do the dishes, or only clean the house a couple of times a year, or even wait to put away that clean laundry on the bed that you swore you’d put away before bed and it’s still there.

Now I’m not here to preach, as I’m writing this, I can see the clothes on my chair that I keep moving to the bed every time I switch places instead of taking the time to actually put them away. Like I said in the beginning, it seems like an easy enough rule to follow when in reality it can be very challenging, however, I encourage you to put some effort into this rule and to change your life, if only in a small bit.

No matter how small the change is, if you are persistent, things will begin to change in larger and larger ways. A snowball thrown at a mountain may not change much in the short term, but that little vibration caused by the small, insignificant snowball can cause the mountain to shed all of its snow and cause an avalanche.

Unlike rule #6 – “Set Your House In Order Before You Criticize The World”, this rule is pretty straightforward. Stop wasting your life away with things that are easy or comfortable and actually do something meaningful.

This may seem a bit harsh of a way to view this rule but the truth hurts sometimes. Too many people are floating through life like a ghost, just passing by without anyone noticing them and without affecting anything in the world.

While it seems right in your brain to continue to sit at home and watch Netflix because it’s easy, that mindset will end up hurting you mentally and physically.

With a mindset like that, you will inevitably follow the same path in other parts of life. Choosing fast food over cooking something healthy because it is more convenient, sitting at home instead of exercising because it’s easy, and doing the bare minimum in work, in school, and in life.

This can also affect your mental well-being in much the same way as it can your physical health. By consistently choosing the easy or comfortable path, your brain will build neural pathways to continue these types of behaviors in the future.

Another way of thinking about this is to compare it to water. No matter the situation, water will always take the path of least resistance or in other words, the easy, comfortable way. Similar to a life focused on comfort and ease, flowing water only goes down, never up.

Now I am not saying you can’t take breaks sometimes when they are needed or that sometimes in life you cannot give 100%, but what I am saying is that on the whole, you will be happier when you have a tough goal to achieve.

Have you ever been sitting at home, mindlessly scrolling, bored out of your mind because you have nothing to do? That is because of a lack of ambition, a lack of goals, and a lack of motive to improve. It may seem hard to break out of these neural pathways right now and it will take some work and dedication, but once you set your mind to a goal and work hard to achieve it, the difference in your life satisfaction will be like night and day

In the end, the goal doesn’t really matter, as long as it is something important to you and is challenging and out of your comfort zone, it will be beneficial to your life and happiness.

Do you use social media? Instagram, Snapchat, MySpace? Alright, maybe not the last one, but how many times have you found yourself scrolling through and seeing all of the amazing things your friends, or even complete strangers, are doing? You then look at your life (and small follower count 😉 ) and begin to believe that you either will never have it as good as these other people or that your life is so boring and lame in comparison. More often than not, you are not alone in this belief.

Long ago, when people lived in small tribes with little connection to the outside, it was “easy” to be good at something and be acknowledged for your amazing ability. But in today’s world of hyperconnection, this is near impossible.

In the world of Instagram influencers and TikToc stars, it can become easy to see these people as the standard and in turn, break yourself with self-criticism due to these unrealistic standards.

This is a personal anecdote, but I realized a couple of years ago after getting second in a National History Day competition, there will always be someone better than you… compare against yourself and improve instead of comparing against someone else and becoming bitter

No matter where you go or what you do, you should always look towards self-improvement compared to envy and jealousy, as these feelings can and will lead to many bad things. By bad things, I mean the idea that envy and jealousy will lead to resentment and thinking that you are a victim and there is nothing you can do to improve yourself.

Now I’m not saying that you should only look at yourself and that comparing yourself to someone else is innately bad, but as my Mom says, “everything in moderation”. Looking up towards people as a goal marker is a great way to improve. The problem arises when you look up towards people and complain about how the world is unfair and another saying by my Mom when I would get in fights with my brother over some small thing “The world isn’t fair”.

By comparing yourself to who you were yesterday allows a way to take responsibility for your life instead of blaming the world and other people for your shortcomings. By looking inwards and improving verses yourself is like pushing a boulder up a hill.

It will be tough and a long process, but in the end, you will reach the peak and find that the view from the top is much better than bickering from below.

Finally, a pretty easy idea to expand upon this week. This rule is actually pretty self-explanatory, but I will try to pull out some helpful information for you, besides the title.

When you speak with someone, do actually listen to them, or do you listen for “trigger words” while thinking about what you are gonna say next? This is a major problem in many areas of communication, from debates to simple, everyday conversations.

For a personal example, I have been very active in debates and debating in my high school years, along with doing a debate this October for one of my clubs at Penn State.

Throughout these experiences, I have found many people don’t even try to listen, let alone understand, what the opposition is explaining, instead choosing to focus wholly on what they were going to respond with, no matter what was brought up by the other side.

For example, I was debating the Common Core Standards that have been implemented in the country’s grade schools. My opponent mentioned that the standards could not be considered a failure as they have not made grades better or worse, to which I responded that the whole goal of the standards was to raise grade scores and since it didn’t, it was by definition a failure. Her response? A repeat of her previous statement in different words, as if I had said nothing.

Even in normal conversations, people seem to not listen to what others are saying and instead, focus on getting what they want to be said spoken.

And this is where the rule shows its value. If you assume the other person knows something you don’t, you will need to listen. As human nature causes us to seek out knowledge, assuming this allows you to gain more knowledge from someone else, along with giving you the ability to make conversations much more than one person speaking.

Assuming someone knows something you don’t also aids in the sharing of new ideas and the ability to actually change minds

Too many people never engage with a different viewpoint, or if they do, never analyze that viewpoint past the surface level. Instead, explaining it away with some simple, generalized statement that never gives the new idea a chance to even bloom.

This is why this rule is necessary when living your life. It teaches you to better understand differing views, have better conversations that can actually have meaning beyond the surface level, and to learn something new every once in a while.

The last post in this series on Jordan Peterson’s “Rules for Life” (although there are two more rules, “Do not bother children while they are skateboarding” and “Pet a cat when you encounter one on the street”) I truly hope whoever read and will read my posts were able to gain, at the very least,  a small bit of helpful knowledge and that these rules helped to improve some aspect of your life. Now, without further ado, the final rule.

Being precise in your speech, along with the rest of the rules, is a very important addition to the rulebook. How many times has an argument arisen due to poor choice of words? How many countless instances of conflict have sprung up due to the juvenile uses of words? Well, many throughout history it turns out.

Countless wars and battles have been started due to the accidental absence of respect or a poor choice of words.

Even on a smaller scale, bar fights starting due to a word uttered that was directed at a man’s girlfriend could be easily solved if this rule was followed.

Another way to look at this rule (albeit a very specific example) would be the way in which the words you speak could be interpreted by someone who doesn’t speak the language you speak. With certain words not transferring across languages, being precise could be very important. From negotiating business deals to agreeing on a ceasefire, precise words are needed to ensure things go smoothly.

Imagine making a deal with a company in another country and you mumble, stutter, or speak quietly when talking. The translator might just hear something you didn’t say that changes the whole deal that is being made, which could end up being a major problem.

Additionally, tone is heavily connected with the idea of precise speech. The way you speak is just as important, if not more, than what you say. As my Dad continuously told my brother and me when we would have a “tone” when arguing back, “It’s not what you say but how you say it”.

I could say that you are the nicest person in the world and how funny you are, but if I underpin that comment with a sarcastic tone, it immediately changes how those words are interpreted. I am sure many of you have experienced this situation in one way or another, which is why tone, along with what you say, is very important.