"Stop blaming the world." Peterson's message is the slap in the face I desperately needed."





Headed For Chaos

I first heard Dr. Peterson on the JRE Experience. He grabbed my attention through the passion in which he spoke out against political correctness and the 'social justice' movement. I've always felt that a lot of these people stunk of ulterior motives.

I could just never quite put my finger on exactly what they were. I would get pissed when people told me I had white privilege without knowing anything about me. I was curious to know how suddenly everything the left disagreed with was hate speech? And why the hell were new pronouns being made up?







Well Jordan Peterson cleared all of that up for me pretty well. Basically the left has been infested with neo-Marxism and postmodernism. They are using identity politics as a power grab. Peterson bravely had dubbed the compelled speech under the new Canadian Bill C-16 as 'murderous.' The far left wants an equality of outcome. History has shown us that the only equality of outcome we'll ever get from socialism is equally starving to death.

But my first thoughts were somewhat skeptical:

-Our system is fucked. Young people today are basically hopeless. We can't find decent jobs. We've got student debt. And many of us will likely never buy a house or even collect social security when we're 65.



This is where Jordan Peterson gives the devil his due. He admits that there are glaring problems in our society such as racism and income inequality. In fact, all systems by their very nature generate inequality. It's basically a law of nature. There are real issues that we will have to address, but giving in to nihilistic socialists (or any extreme ideology for that matter) is not the way out.

It's quite opposite of the way out. Dr. Peterson references Nietzsche who famously predicted in the 1800s that millions would die in the 1900s as a result of God being 'dead.' In his lectures Peterson often uses archetypal myths to demonstrate important values. Some happen to be from the bible and other religious texts, while most are simply stories we heard as kids. As it turns out, all of those old stupid books were actually quite important for keeping us morally grounded and purposeful.

We traded religion for science, but there's too much we don't know about reality. And this disassociation leads to a sickness of the spirit that often results in people bouncing from hopelessness to extreme ideology. He is trying to warn both the left and the right who seem to be drifting dangerously further apart.

Clean Your Room



So in an appeal to those who feel resentful and unsatisfied with their lives, Dr. Peterson made a shift away from the abstract and down to the individual to provide a solution. He famously advises those who want to fix up the world to first, "Clean your room."

Again... A slew of negative thoughts entered my mind:

-What? Clean my room? How the hell is a clean room going to change the fact that 98% of the wealth is owned by like 30 god damn people.

-Even if I got my act together, what's the point? Life is meaningless and we're all dying the minute we're born.

-Why should I take responsibility for this life that I didn't choose or want?

-Why not just continue having fun and then kill myself at 40? Surely that's better than getting married, having kids, and slaving away the rest of my life at some shit job.

-Life sucks anyway. Humanity is just a planetary version of herpes.

It finally clicked. This resentment I hold is the same resentment and nihilism that fuels the extreme left (and probably the right too just manifested differently). These people don't care about the oppressed. They just hate the rich.

Had I not been a 'white male oppressor' by their standards, I may have easily been sucked up into the post-modernist movement too. Instead, I've always been sort of a Bill Maher liberal (wannabe intellectual, morally bankrupt, hate God, and avoid responsibility at all costs).

But as I enter my 30's. I know very well that I may begin to lean more conservative in my political views. It's no secret that many people veer from avid liberalism in their early 20's to staunch conservatism in their 40's.

In this polarized climate, who's to say I wouldn't lean all the way to the alt-right? Both the radical left and the alt-right share the same resentment. And to be perfectly honest, I could feel a great deal of resentment brewing inside me for the past year or so. I was becoming increasingly hopeless about life. I started to see people around me settle into comfort while I was still searching for meaning and purpose. In a sense I could feel the walls starting to cave in.

Jordan Peterson seemed to entered into my life at just the right time.

So despite having no religious background or interest in the bible, I decided to tune into his biblical lecture series anyway.

Real or bullshit, God or no God, Dr. Peterson's interpretation of this book is full of life-changing advice and guidelines.

The essence is this: Life is suffering. You can lesson the suffering by aiming for something good, and you can live better and longer by sacrificing the present for the future. The optimal state for humans is the line between order and chaos. Peterson compares this to an ice skater who pushes herself just to the point of chaos and absolute destruction, but miraculously keeps herself in order to pull a perfect score. Too much order is tyranny. Chaos is death.

So how does one establish order in their life? How can I learn to walk the line between chaos and order? According to Peterson, the first thing I need is a plan.

Self Authoring Program



Jordan's main selling point for his Self Authoring Program is the proposition that your life is either a comedy or a tragedy. If you don't have an aim, your life will probably be a tragedy. Finding something noble to aim at in both the short and long term allows you to become the hero of your own story.

Past Authoring: Writing out the events of my past for some reason allowed me to let go of a great deal of hurt and anger I had been carrying around with me. It also helped me to see that I was playing out a narrative over and over where I could paint myself as the victim. I kept doing certain things that would give me an excuse to alienate myself and see the world as unfair. If I ended up in a hopeless situation, it wasn't my fault. It was simply the doings of a cruel world that doesn't give a shit about me. Identifying these patterns and this flawed logic has let me to make fundamental changes in my life.

Present Authoring: The section forced me to explore both my virtues and faults in detail. A lot of these are things that I knew in the back of my mind, but being forced to write them allowed me to put these issues at the forefront of my life. This has allowed me to try to capitalize on the things I'm good at, while working hard to improve faults that I have.

Future Authoring: This is where I began to build a plan for myself. Here I laid out specific short-term and long-term things that I want to accomplish. These are all things I believe would give my life meaning and provide me with something good to aim for. The future authoring program also forced me to envision the hell I might be headed for if I don't pursue these things.

Doing the self-authoring suite didn't all of a sudden make everything better. First it scared the shit out of me. I was struck with real anxiety over what might happen to me in the future. After the initial shock, I feel like a seed has begun to grow that has me thinking everyday about little things I can do to orient myself to the future I wish to have.

"The first step to wisdom is fear."

Personality Test



Dr. Peterson also sells a personality assessment at Understandmyself.com. He uses the big 5 model to determine to where a person ranks in terms of agreeableness, conscientiousness, extroversion, neuroticism, and openness.

Agreeableness: Exceptionally Low

Conscientiousness: Exceptionally Low

Extroversion: Low

Neuroticism: Moderately High

Openness: Typical

These results seem to explain a lot in my life. They certainly explain why despite being recognized in a few big ways for my photography, I've failed to monetize or make meaningful connections. Lowness in conscientiousness explains my tendency to avoid responsibility and not take life seriously.

A low score in extroversion also provides good insight for why I seldom meet new people and spend most of my time alone. While I was surprised to see such a high score in neuroticism, I guess it's not a complete shock given my mood sometimes. The one saving grace I hoped for was a high score in openness. That is usually a marker for creativity. And well, a typical score wasn't much of a comfort.

IQ Test



The personality test results actually had me down for a couple of days. It's a harsh reality to face, especially knowing that these are pretty fixed traits. Dr. Peterson often states that the two biggest predictors for success are conscientiousness and IQ. Well, I just eliminated one factor with that personality test. So I decided to take an IQ test to decide whether I was in fact a complete sack of shit.

IQ Test Result: 108

That's at the top tier of average. As I suspected, my IQ disqualifies me from upper-class jobs like lawyers and doctors, but other than that my options are fairly open. With a dash of creativity and specialized skill, I just might be able to turn this shitshow of a life into something worthwhile.

Going Forward



My 20's were about escaping life. Hopefully my 30's and onward will be about playing a noble role in it. Dr. Peterson's work has given me a framework for beginning a new journey. Without his advice and programs I could have easily continued blaming the world for my problems, avoiding responsibility, and seeking to foolishly numb myself until I ended up in hell. Recently I'm trying to eat better. Soon I will start a new job that entails more responsibility. I am now hyper-vigilant of my tenancies to veer off course, alienate myself, and play the victim.

If changes like these don't constitute as life-saving. I don't know what does.