Beyond Order 12 More Rules for Life

Peterson had some roundabout ways to elaborate on a few of his points, most of the time i had to flip to the start of the chapter to find out what rule was he talking about. Will probably re-read the chapters I'm interested in in the next couple of weeks..

** spoiler alert ** Taking peak on this book and install advices could definitely help make you better person and nicer surrounding to growth further. Master one thing, master to be one great person by your imagination, to take opportunity which awaits you, to make beautiful room in your life with partner you are emotional connected and love, to not to do things you don't like and memories you suffer from, and even then do not let yourself be resentful and if bad thing happened, be grateful for suffering bc that's how you will grow, together. Summary in one sentence :) ≥Order and chaos are constants in our world; you can't escape them ≥You can say that you are in “order” when the actions you believe to be appropriate and correct are producing expected outcomes. ≥Order is where what you want makes itself known, and chaos is where what you do not expect or have can't leap forward from the potential that surrounds you. ≥Chaos can be regarded as an anomaly, novelty, or disruption. ≥preparing for the worst and hoping for the best. ≥Developing social and psychological stability can be daunting, but it's worth it. ≥Rule 1: “Do not carelessly denigrate social institutions or creative achievement.” ≥Rule 2: “Imagine who you could be, and then aim single-mindedly at that.” ≥Rule 3: “Do not hide unwanted things in the fog.” ≥When something happens to you, learn to have some reflective moments after it's all over. You will pick lessons that will improve your judgment and reactions to future events. If there is a memory from the past you're fighting hard to get rid of, do this instead: create time today to just ponder on all that happened. Be very objective about it and see lessons you can pick. No event is a waste. ≥Nothing that happens to you is a waste; make up your mind to learn from every experience. ≥Rule 4: “Opportunity lurks where responsibility has been abdicated.” ≥The things you need for your next level are often around you if you can just look carefully. Many people are busy chasing the wind. They want success and lofty achievements but fail to take responsibility for the things under their immediate control. Before you go hunting for success elsewhere, ensure you do some housekeeping. ≥Your “homework” here can mean many different things: • Become more diligent at work. • Organize what you can see is dangerously disorganized. • Learn more about the business or your competitors than you already know. • Volunteer more in your community. • Start the side project you've always wanted to start. • Be more intentional about your life. The list goes on. ≥life knows how to reward hard work. ≥Rule 5: “Do not do what you hate doing” ≥Humans are more responsible for the state of the world than they imagine. Each betrayal, wickedness, show of love, etc., has ripple effects beyond your imagination. ≥If we want to make the world a better place, we can start from where we are, with our decisions and actions. You don't have to be a person of great influence to change the world. Just resist doing things your conscience tells you not to do. If you pay more attention to doing the things you love and are passionate about, you will feel better about yourself and begin to influence people around you. ≥As cliche as it may sound, changing the world starts with changing yourself. ≥We awaken in others the same attitude of mind we hold toward them. ≥Rule 6: “Abandon ideology” ≥Working hard on a particular focus and beautifying your surroundings can help you live a life of order ≥Rule 7: “Work as hard as you possibly can on at least one thing and see what happens.” ≥mastery only comes through practice ≥We know that it takes time, practice, and consistency to get good in our fields and build a career we're proud of. ≥To become knowledgeable is to be exceptionally informed and aware. ≥For most individuals, the resilience of a united spirit is not easy to attain because of the numerous temptations we face daily. However, if you work as hard as you can on one thing, you will gain mastery and stability. ≥Pick an area of your life you want to gain mastery of—health, finance, career, etc. Work hard in that area until you begin to see noticeable results. ≥Rule 8: “Try to make one room in your home as beautiful as possible.” ≥Funny as it may sound, making your room beautiful is important in maintaining order in your life. ≥The excellence and creativity that you put into beautifying your room will begin to reflect in your professional and personal life. That's the magic of psychology. So, go ahead and beautify your room. Don't outsource it; create time to do it yourself. ≥Rule 9: “If old memories still upset you, write them down carefully and completely.” ≥You should always strive to recollect your experiences and derive lessons from them. ≥If you do not learn from your mistakes, you may remain in the past, continually suffering, not making any progress, and unable to accept the challenges and tragedies facing you. ≥You must recollect yourself or suffer in direct proportion to your ignorance and avoidance. ≥Retracing your steps can help you get over past mistakes, reflect on your errors, learn from your slip-ups, and put yourself back together. This may not always be easy, but you need to try. ≥Rule 10: “You need to plan and work diligently to maintain the romance in your relationship.” ≥it's just important to find a balance between sexual and emotional intimacy. If couples can get intimate on these two levels, they are almost guaranteed to enjoy a long-lasting relationship. One key way to establish this sort of intimacy is communication. You and your partner must be open about your sexual and emotional needs. Help the other person to love you and vice versa. ≥Given the busyness of modern life, every couple should dedicate time weekly just to talk heart-to-heart. If you don't do this, you will soon find that work and parenting are causing you to drift apart. ≥Rule 11: “Do not allow yourself to become resentful, deceitful, or arrogant.” ≥Consider every form of suffering as an opportunity to learn and grow so that you can help others do the same. ≥Rule 12: “Be grateful despite your sufferings.”

I decided to skip the rest of the book. Although ideologically I differ from Peterson, I like listening to his point of view. I mostly agree with what I've listened to so far, but nothing has been enlightening and the chapters feel long and drawn out. It is pretty dry. I like reading full books for nonfiction when the examples and anecdotes help make things more memorable and interesting, but in this case that is not happening for me. As such, I'm going to read a summary and move on.

First things first I want to say I would recommend this book. Like the first one it's quite useful to a wide range of people, and like the first one I think it misses in some areas. Overall the advice is admittedly quite dry and not awe inspiring, but I don't think that's necessarily a bad thing. Simple advise can be useful, and helps keep people away from pretending there is some sort of "3 tips they don't want you to know to make $100000 a month for only $99.99" nonsense that is prevalent everywhere. I will say this book is definately marred by political nonsense in various sections (as you will see later), but overall I think a large portion of the advise is good. The only major issues are the occasional proselytizing for politics/religion and the overly placid stance he takes on social action. I decided to stay away from reviews before reading, and I am glad I did. Many people seem to have preemptively written off Peterson, which I think is not a great idea. While he has many faults, the two 12 rules for life books are definitely an area that I would say is largely positive and you should at least give it a chance before throwing it out entirely. I generally think this book is an improvement in many ways to 12 Rules for Life, but I still think there are many shortcomings present in both the content and how it is presented. So with that in mind, here are the details chapter by chapter. Overture and Coda: The intro to the book I think was well written and gives background for when and how this book was written. But most importantly specifies that this book was written before the pandemic, and that's useful to note since much of the advice is not possible during a pandemic surrounding social gatherings. Rule 1: I think this chapter has a good mix of concrete and abstract advice. The notion of being a gracious beginner is great, and I think the pointing story is good, but a bit drawn out. The main criticism in this chapter is in the philosophy. The notion that the dichotomy of a hierarchy is either ambition or tyranny is short sighted, and completely ignores the old adage that "the road to hell is paved with good intentions". Someone's intent to fulfill an ambition is certainly not a prerequisite to an abuse of power, and I think this misses the situations where people in charge are actually doing things wrong. Rule 2: There was not much memorable from this chapter if you have read the original, since it's very similar to much of the advice in there. The inclusion of the Mesopotamian history was nice if for no other reason than it exposes more people to the story, but I think the point being made about marduk was a bit stretched but still interesting. Rule 3: The start of this chapter was easily the most memorable. There are very few times when someone writes something that feels quite authentically human, and the first section of this chapter is one of them. Likewise the advice was good throughout, and reminiscent of some of Sartre's work on the notion of bad faith. Rules 4 & 5: If you have read the original, this really is nothing new so I will just pass over it. The advice is still useful and valid, but don't expect anything earthshattering if you are familiar with JBP's work in these chapters. Rules 6 & 7: These two are by far the worst two chapters, and for mostly the same reason. These two chapters step deeply into politics, and this is just awkward and subpar compared to the rest of the book. 6 in particular talks about abandoning ideology, but then leads into essentially pamphleteering for Christianity which continues throughout 7. This is especially egregious when talking about the 10 commandments, which unlike the other mentions of Christianity throughout feels more like a post-hoc justification for them, as opposed to an addition to a broader point. While I don't necessarily have a problem with this, it is quite ironic in a chapter titled "Abandon Ideology". I do think the critiques about many postmodern ideologies being an all-encompassing solution to every problem that limits thought is actually quite a pointed and useful critique I found myself making when reading many postmodern works. Also the subchapter about ressentiment has a similar critique to chapter 1 and falls into the same trap. Overall I think the idea of not taking ideologies too seriously is valid, but the presentation in this chapter feels very bitter and rushed. Rule 8: This chapter expands on the previous books meme of cleaning your room. The very beginning I think was a well-reasoned and well stated acknowledgement of a common criticism of Peterson about not getting his own house in order. From there it goes on into a brilliant exposition about artistry that I thoroughly enjoyed (though sprinkled with some odd political slants in sections), then into some thought provoking points about slowing down and seeing more of your surroundings in the present. The chapter ends off with a longer winded point that can be summed up in the old adage "the nail that sticks out gets hammered down". Overall I'm happy to say after the last two chapters it made me feel like the book got back into the swing of things. Rule 9: The chapter starts with some good points about keeping track of where you are, and more importantly exploring, digesting, and understanding where you've been. There is a succinct, and very apt warning about not over romanticizing the past and becoming cynical about the future since that is "a hell that has no limit to it's depth". more interesting however is the story of a client presented near the beginning of this chapter. This idea of reframing memories was one I hadn't considered, and may be the primary take away I have after reading this book. The rest of the chapter was somewhat weirder. Many of the accounts later felt quite pseudoscientific, though it may just be my ignorance to psychology and psychological treatment that drives that thought. Rule 10: Being a perpetually single man meant I didn't get much from this chapter. I think more broadly some of the advise could go just generally for life. Especially about trying to keep romance alive in a more abstract sense. There's a difference between living and being alive, and it tends to be that the former is enjoyable and the latter is an obligation. Rule 11: This chapter reminds me of several authors works conveniently rolled into one. The beginning reminds me a lot of the sickness unto death by Soren Kierkegaard. I thoroughly enjoyed it since I love that book, but I personally found nothing new about it. If you haven't read that book however, this chapter elucidates actuality and possibility in a much easier way to understand than Kierkegaard does. The same is true for the allusions to nature being very similar to ideas expressed in Thus Spoke Zarathustra. Likewise with the notion of lies and deceit being very similar to bad faith explored in Jean-Paul Sartre's Being and Nothingness. Rule 12: Again this chapter reminds me a lot of The Sickness Unto Death, in particular the end where columbine is discussed and it's relation to Kierkegaard's idea of "Daemonic Despair" TL;DR/Update: It's been a few weeks since I finished the book and wrote the above review. After taking some time to think more I have managed to make things more succinct. This book is great for people who feel like they really need help. I read the original 12 rules for life in high school when I was having a lot of issues and it genuinely helped me quite a bit. This book is no different in that it can help some people find what they need to give THEMSELVES a kick in the right direction. At the end of the day with any self-help style book none of it is magic. That being said I will once again harken back to a point Peterson himself has made through an explanation of some of Nietzsche's work. Peterson is not a prophet, and his work is not infallible nor is most of it even that new. The onus is on you to implement it how you see fit, and no writer can wave a wand to fix your life. Peterson has taken a reasonable crack at distilling lots of existentialist philosophy and psychology down into something easy to digest (and sometimes oversimplified in my opinion). Many of the suggestions are banal, simple and feel like something you would hear from a dad during a boy scout fire in the 1960's before you had your family time cigarette, but they are still worth considering. He's also human so he has a few hiccups, and some questionable chapters (cough 6&7). But overall give it a chance, and take what is said with a grain of salt in some sections.