12 Rules for Life, by Jordan B Peterson

(photo: patting a cat that I saw on a street in Penang in 2013, after completing the Penang Bridge Marathon!!)

Had been reading this self-help book recently (available as free pdf, or ebook from the library), and thought it contained some great stories and lessons on how to live!

And after finishing it after many, many, days (it is a pretty long book, more than 1000 pages!) I realized that the book had topped best seller lists in Canada, USA, and UK in 2018, the year it was published. And that the author has quite a large Youtube following and fan base, and was involved in several high profile “controversies” (the interested reader can easily find these on the internet!)

I was actually searching for another ebook The Gulag Archipelago (by Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn), which is about the brutal concentration camps in the Soviet Union. The book “12 Rules for Life – an antidote to chaos” also appeared in the search results. Usually, I give books with such titles a miss, but, …, why did this even book appear in my search (see Note 1)?

Looking at the contents page (see Note 2), I became intrigued by some of the chapter titles that did not seem so obvious as a “rule for life”, like the following:

Rule 5  Do not let your children do anything that makes you dislike them,

Rule 11  Do not bother children when they are skateboarding

Rule 12  Pat a cat when you encounter one on the street

Anyway, at the end of the day, I did a summary of his rules, because the book is quite “long-winded” at some parts with the story telling (lots of stories from the bible, for example, or on post-modernism and its effects in the West), to capture what I thought was the essential thing to take away. And that was still way too long (20 over pages), and I did a “summary of the summary” (4 pages, 3 rules per page) that I was finally happy with!

Basically, for me, the central message of the book is this:
“life is suffering, and there is good and evil in every human heart (see Note 3). In spite of this, do not despair because you can still do something about it to make it better for yourself and others, instead of making it worse!

So, take responsibility to do something good everyday (improve yourself, help others, do something good for the environment, speak truthfully) and to see what is good in the world, instead of blaming others or circumstances outside of yourself.”

And “Rule 12 Pat a cat when you encounter one on the street” offers guidance on acceptance of our limitations (imagine, if you are omniscient, omnipresent and omnipotent – what else is there for you, where else do you go?), so that we can aim towards something better. And then, in the challenges faced as we aim forward in our daily life, instead of wallowing in negativity and thus, increasing your suffering and perhaps that of others, try instead to notice what is good and act, and experience the wonder of BEING!”

But why pat a cat, instead of a dog? In the author’s opinion, CATS come closest to embodying BEING, but “pat a cat” is really a metaphor, and “enjoy a cup of coffee” or “notice a beautiful flower” or anything that lifts your spirits will also do just fine!  🙂

Notes:

1. There is a lot of reference to The Gulag Archipelago in Peterson’s book, because he uses it to illustrate the ideas of good/evil, and how one man who had experienced the evils of the concentration camps himself (Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn) reflected on his own contribution to it (instead of just blaming it on others), and what he could do about it afterwards (write a book about it, to document and reveal what happened and lessons learnt, so that hopefully, it will not be repeated again).
2. Here are the 12 Rules:

Stand up straight with your shoulders back

Treat yourself like someone you are responsible for helping

Make friends with people who want the best for you

Compare yourself to who you were yesterday, not to who someone else is today

Do not let your children do anything that makes you dislike them

Set your house in perfect order before you criticize the world

Pursue what is meaningful (not what is expedient)

Tell the truth – or, at least, don’t lie

Assume that the person you are listening to might know something you don’t

Be precise in your speech

Do not bother children when they are skateboarding

Pat a cat when you encounter one on the street

3.   This is the idea that Solzhenitsyn is often cited for, as he reflected on what happened in the Soviet Union and on his own role in it: that everyone is capable of good and evil! He wrote:

Gradually it was disclosed to me that the line separating good and evil passes not through states, nor between classes, nor between political parties either – but right through every human heart – and through all human hearts. This line shifts. Inside us, it oscillates with the years. And even within hearts overwhelmed by evil, one small bridgehead of good is retained. And even in the best of all hearts, there remains … an unuprooted small corner of evil. Since then I have come to understand the truth of all the religions of the world: They struggle with the evil inside a human being (inside every human being). It is impossible to expel evil from the world in its entirety, but it is possible to constrict it within each person.

Solzhenitsyn, A.I., The Gulag Archipelago: Vol 2 (1975)