Live with Purpose: Powerful Lessons from Jordan Peterson

0:00Let's say you want to become who you could be in the fullest sense. So let's say you're someone who's going to solve some serious problems. Okay, the first thing you have to do is admit to the seriousness of the problems. That's no joke. And so the first thing is just the terror of the problem itself. And that's enough to paralyze you, right? And that's the hider, that's the gorgon with the head of snakes. It'll paralyze you and turn you to stone. That's the basilisk in the Harry Potter series. You look at it and it turns you to stone and lurks underneath everything, right? And it's malevolence and tragedy. And so, and so there's that. And then the next is what you're going to take responsibility for that. You're really going to do that, are you? That's a hell of a load, man. And so it's daunting to even consider that. And then there's the discipline and responsibility that that necessitates, which is also daunting. It's like, oh my god, the problem's that serious. I'm really going to have to get my eye together in order to not contribute to it, much less solvent.

1:01And so the problem is terrible. And then the solution is daunting. But the upside of that is, is like, well, there isn't anything better to have than a problem that's worth solving. Like, that's really worth solving, right? And so the more of that you take on, the more you have a reason to get out of bed in the morning, no matter what. And I'm getting up, I'm trudging forward. It doesn't matter what I'm suffering from. I've got things that need to be done. They're necessary. And that gives you that sense of purpose that is the antidote to bitterness. Okay, well, let's say you want your life to be meaningful. It's like, okay, then what you do matters. It actually matters. So that's an interesting thing. So let's say you go over your past with a fine tooth comb and you decide you're going to take responsibility for everything that you did that was wrong and everything that you failed to do that you could have done that was right. Like, does that change the world?

2:01It's like, depends on how thoroughly you do it. You might say it changes the world like nothing else possibly can. And I think that that's actually right. You have to allow yourself a certain latitude for error. And that's a useful thing to know too. One of the things I tell people when they're trying to develop a vision for their life for an implementable plan is make a bad plan. Make the best one you can, but don't get obsessive about it. Like, make a plan, implement it. You'll figure out when you implement it, why it's stupid, exactly. And then you can fix it a little bit. Compare yourself to who you were yesterday and not to who someone else is today. The same basic idea, right, is that you have to get your markers for success, right? Because otherwise you can end up in this situation you described, which is that like there's always people out there who are doing far better than you on pretty much anything you want to imagine. And if all you're doing is seeing yourself in their reflected light, let's say, then it's going to be pretty damn dismal. But it's not a good comparison because you shouldn't just compare, well, first of all, there's danger in just comparing yourself to others' period

3:03because they're not you and God only knows what struggles they had to undertake to get to where they were or what burdens they're currently carrying that you're not aware of. You just don't know any of that, but you can certainly contrast yourself with yourself. And that's a lot better. It is the only way. Well, it's also the only way of really measuring anything, approximating proper improvement. You can actually tell when you're a little better than you were yesterday. And you can actually do that. That's another thing that's so interesting about it is that you can actually make yourself a little better in some way, pretty much, well, I don't know if it's at every moment, but you can certainly do it every day. I mean, you know, obviously, if you have a problem and you think about it, you can think of a solution. And it's not obvious how you do that. You know, I mean, it's not like you know how you're manipulating your neurons or something. It happens of its own accord in some sense. Like you can participate in it, I guess, and you can interfere with it. And it seems to take a certain amount of willpower, but it still all happens mysteriously behind the scenes.

4:08One of the things that I've been, so there's lots of different ways to interpret the world. And you can maybe even make a case that there's an endless number of ways to interpret the world. And the problem with that is that kind of disorient you in terms of what you should be doing, but just because there's a very large number of ways to interpret the world doesn't mean there's a very large number of productive, meaningful, and sustainable ways to interpret the world. One of the things you do have to do is figure out how you conduct yourself today so that you don't upset the apple card in a week or a month or a year. And so, you know, what you do in some sense psychologically is you admit to yourself that your current frame of reference is faulty. And then you start opening the door to a different kind of thinking, which is more creative thinking. It's more lateral thinking. You say, well, I'm wrong, but that's not necessarily a problem because I could be right if I thought some other way. Well, that's great. Often it works. There's almost no lack. There's almost no end to the utility of trying to figure out which ways that you're wrong.

5:12Because there's lots of them. And every time you discover one, then you don't have to be quite so wrong anymore. That's a really good deal. The day is like a page in a book. Of course, there's many pages in a book, but the page repeats. And so, one of the things I often had my clients do, I'll tell you a little story. I had one client who was spending about 45 minutes a night fighting with his young son about when to go to bed. And so, you know, they weren't having a pleasant time of it because it was just a constant battle. And that's common. It's very common for parents of young children to be locked in a battle that occurs day after day. Sometimes it's around eating, sometimes it's toilet training, sometimes general behavioral issues, sometimes it's bedtime. So we did some arithmetic. It's like, okay, 40 minutes a day. So that's 280 minutes a week. So that's like, say, five hours. It's 20 hours a month. It's 240 hours a year. That's six work weeks. That's a month and a half. You're spending a month and a half of work weeks doing nothing but fighting with your son. What makes you think you're going to like him? Right? Well, and, you know, it's, you think, well, it's only 40 minutes a day.

6:16It's like, don't fool yourself. Anything that's every day is a significant percentage of your life. You know, because what you, you're awake, let's say 16 hours, five of those hours are basically maintenance. So you got about 11 and then seven of those are work. So now you're down to four. And so if you're spending 15 minutes a day doing something painful and stupid and you do it every day, it's like 10% of your productive life. And so it's really useful to get, because people think backwards. They think, well, I have a vacation coming up and that's really important. It's like, no, it's not. You're only going to do it once. It's not that important. How you treat each other at lunchtime if you eat together every day, that's your life. Fix that. Get it, get it so that the food's good. Get it so that you're happy with the people that are sitting there. Fix that. It's like, poof, 10% of your life is fixed. Well, you admit that there's a problem first. And then you ask for the minimum necessary intervention, which would be all right.

7:18Well, I'd like to move forward on this. Some small amount that someone like me could actually manage. And I'd be willing to carry it out. And then you reorient the way you're thinking as a consequence of that. And something usually pops out of the abyss to guide you. It's very strange. But it's not really any stranger than the fact that we can think at all, because the fact that we can think is actually very strange. It's strange like the fact that we can dream is strange. And that's strange beyond belief that you can dream. Or that something in you dreams, which is a much better way of thinking about it. Because it's not like you're really in control of your dreams. They just sort of happen.