Jordan Peterson – Excerpt from Beyond Order Speech

Here’s a portion of the Episode 40 of the Jordan B. Peterson podcast. The podcast features a lecture that Dr. Peterson gave on in San Diego on January 25, 2019. He talks about some of the rules he lists in his most recently book, Beyond Order. His new rules are:

1. "Do not carelessly denigrate social institutions or creative achievement."
2. "Imagine who you could be and then aim single-mindedly at that."
3. "Do not hide unwanted things in the fog."
4. "Notice that opportunity lurks where responsibility has been abdicated."
5. "Do not do what you hate."
6. "Abandon ideology."
7. "Work as hard as you possibly can on at least one thing and see what happens."
8. "Try to make one room in your home as beautiful as possible."
9. "If old memories still upset you, write them down carefully and completely."
10. "Plan and work diligently to maintain the romance in your relationship."
11. "Do not allow yourself to become resentful, deceitful, or arrogant."
12. "Be grateful in spite of your suffering.

Here’s a link to the podcast episode: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-jordan-b-peterson-podcast/id1184022695?i=1000460444647

I found what he had to say around the one-hour twenty-five-minute mark particularly valuable, and have transcribed it here:

"And it does some to me that we’re capable of actual improvements and well as psychological improvements, and if we took our distaste for the world seriously and noticed that that was a call from our conscience to action that we would to act forthrightly in the world and set things right. And the question would be, “Well, how right could they be set?” You know, well I said that opportunity lurks where responsibility has been abdicated. Well, I learned opportunity – that’s the wind that blows you into a port – that’s what opportunity means, that’s the derivation. And responsibly is the wind that blows you into a port. There’s things that are crying out to be done, and you know it, and it can make you bitter. It’s like, no. It like, you could do them. You could start doing them. You could try to do them. That would be something. God only knows what you could accomplish if you did that. God only knows what you could transform yourself into if you did that. And then that’s… that seems to be the adventure of life. It like, well, who are you exactly? Well how are you going to find it out? Well, take the responsibly for making things better and see how far you can go with that...”
“Maybe we have what is necessary within us to cope with life no matter how terrible life is. And not only can we cope with it but we can actually improve it, and improve it substantively and continually. And we can find meaning in that. And we can make things better. And so, well that’s what I’m hoping will happen. And that’s why I think so many people are coming to listen to these talk because people have some sense that that’s a real possibility - that they could participate in that in there isn’t anything better that they could possibly be doing."
“And then I’m hoping in this era of unparalleled possibility that sort of stretches itself out in front of us now, if there’s enough people who get their act together, you know, as individuals who are each at the center of the world… If enough of us get our act together then maybe we can take that tremendous possibility that’s come along with our technology potency and we can make things so much better than they are already that we can hardly even imagine it. What the hell, that’s worth pursuing, man, that’s worth investing in. Why not do that? And so I hope that you do that."