Uncertainty is uncomfortable. We want to feel like we know what we’re doing because certainty feels good. The benefits of questioning yourself might look appealing on paper, but the process feels awful in practice. It takes conscious effort to genuinely question yourself, which means you need a strong incentive to make that effort.
Try this: imagine years spent holding and acting on flawed ideas or unhealthy motives. Imagine all those younger years spent in confusion and pain because of a faulty perspective you could’ve shifted at any moment. You don’t have to imagine much, though; most of us have (hopefully) left behind ideas and motives that once caused our younger selves to suffer.
It’s counterintuitive and even painful to examine your own perspective for flaws, but you’ve already lived the benefits.
No person is made better by clinging to the unexamined perspective of their childhood just as no adult is made better by ignoring potential flaws in their perspective today.
Knowing what you’re doing also means knowing why you’re doing it. Clarity about your actions and what motivates them means putting two of the most powerful human abilities into synchronized forward motion. Your car’s steering wheel can drive you off the path you’re aiming for and into destruction if it’s just slightly out of alignment; your actions and intentions are no different.
You think you want a healthy and loving relationship, but your actions lead you to partners that clearly can’t provide that. What are your intentions, really? You think you want wealth and success, but your actions lead you to constant procrastination. What are your intentions, really?
Thinking about the intentions behind your actions has gotten tainted by proximity to less rigorous schools of thought that call for collecting pretty crystals in the face of hardship.
Intentions aren’t magic–they’re as straightforward and pragmatic as a map. You have to contend with the obvious fact that you don’t always do what you say you want to do.
Why? There is more to a human being than just the singular thought process that decides what you will do. There are parts of you that don’t decide in words, but in emotions and actions. When your actions don’t match your words, you’ll know you haven’t accounted for the other parts of you that either propel you forward or pull you backward.
Take some time to understand yourself rather than assuming your thoughts are the only things you need to go from Point A to Point B. Notice if there’s some hint of resistance or discomfort that comes up when you visualize starting on and completing your goal–that’s the wordless side of you that needs examining and aligning.
Stop acting as though you’re a simple computer program that runs actions on command and you’ll achieve things no computer ever could.
— Salomé
Book of the Month
Jordan Peterson has gone from being an unknown but accomplished academic to being a controversial and even more accomplished public intellectual. Peterson is the perfect example of why a reasonable and forward-moving culture needs public intellectuals:
the way a culture reacts to the ideas and life of such a figure has less to do with the person themselves and far more to do with the state of that culture.
12 Rules for Life is not an inherently controversial book; in some ways, it’s a rather straightforward self-help book rooted in psychology and philosophy. As both a clinical psychologist and academic, Peterson is well positioned to offer practical guidance that connects your present struggles to the wider world in a deeper, meaningful way.
That’s what this book is ultimately addressing and why it has enraged specific groups invested in pushing their own answers to your problems: we live in a society where the guide rails of tradition and culture have been diluted to the point of meaninglessness. The direction you once turned to family or community for can’t help you in a society that seems to shift significantly every few days.
You’re on your own. Whether your individualism becomes your freedom or your ruin is entirely up to you.
Peterson’s book offers you an alternative to the dogmatic options we’re faced with today. Instead of over-zealous religion, self-righteous activism, or extremist politics, 12 Rules for Life gives the reader a blueprint for founding an individualized belief system that leans on the best parts of multiple areas of human knowledge, from science to spirituality.
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What To Expect Next
The path to a better society doesn’t detour through individual suffering. When you get better, the people around you have a better chance to rise up too. Plus, are you really in a position to solve other people’s problems when you’re consumed by your own? Finding your solutions is the most reliable and realistic way to help other people find their solutions.
Stay tuned for our next newsletter on what it means to improve yourself in order to improve your society.