The BEST Ideas in Jordan Peterson's Book "12 Rules for Life: An Antidote to Chaos" Part 2

Inspiration coupled with imagination has led to the advancements our species has witnessed... Shout-out to @rothberg, Jordan Peterson, and the movie "Creed" for the inspiration that led to this meme:

"Leg Day" in the gym is among the most brutal of the workouts... Squats and lying leg curls, with the squat rack loaded with two 45 lb plates on either side of the bar for a total weight of 225 lbs.

Then doing 10 sets of 10, with the lying leg curls, 10 sets of 10, spaced in between; going back and forth, one exercise to the other until you're finished. Then you move on to the rest of the workout...

Squatting a total of 22,500 Pounds (plus your own body weight) is a heck of a thing, and that quote above, courtesy of @rothberg, loosely quoting the movie "Creed," is what helped me get through that workout yesterday.

Thanks buddy! 🙇

No matter WHAT my excuse was to cut the workout short, that quote above won the argument in favor of more reps, more pain, more nausea... and ultimately more results.

We're two weeks away from the blood test I'm taking to re-measure my testosterone level, when we'll find out if taking over-the-counter supplements, dietary changes, and pushing weight in the gym will raise the testosterone level for a healthy male in his early 40's.

More on that later...

Page 78

"A villain who despairs of his villainy has not become a hero. A hero is something positive, not just the absence of evil.

But Christ himself, you might object, befriended tax-collectors and prostitutes. How dare I cast aspersions on the motives of those who are trying to help?
But Christ was the archetypal perfect man.

And you're you.

How do you know that your attempts to pull someone up won't instead bring them --or you-- further down?"

To try to unpack the weight of just this message (without writing a book) seems so daunting that the answer is simply:

Regard those times in your life where your efforts of assistance to another were ultimately futile.

Perhaps the metaphor of the drowning person may assist: When training as a Lifeguard you learn NOT to reach out to someone while you are both in the water, and they are thrashing about, panicking, drowning...

They will grab onto you, literally fighting for their life, and the result very well may be of both of you permanently taking up residence in Davy Jones' locker.

"Down is a lot easier than up." (Pg 79)

This section of "12 Rules for Life," as I re-read it for this post, is so intelligently layered, so perfectly presented, and so cleverly timed and spaced that any further dissection on my part, I feel, would do it a disservice.

If you have ever prided yourself as someone who is generous, who helps others, and who does so occasionally (or perhaps often) to your own detriment, you need to read this section, if not the whole book in its entirety.

We ARE animals.

Animals with a soul, some may argue; or consciousness, or whatever that thing, or essence, or as yet indescribable aspect of our species that makes us different from every other living thing on the planet.

Our self-motivated impetus toward helping others, along with a wiser modus operandi going forward, once coupled with our own self-understanding for our behavioral choices (assuming there is such a thing, and the philosophical theory of Determinism missed the mark), can be far better understood after reading this section.

If you ever desire to know yourself better, this book offers that insight.

At 370 pages, imagine this book as such:

A large Vault, guarded by a shiny, steel, 6-feet-thick round door, opening into a massive Chamber, filled floor to ceiling with gold coins, bricks of silver, amulets, crowns, and Burmese rubies the size of your fist...

Over the next two weeks we'll examine the most valuable contents of this Treasure Room to LIFT ourselves to a higher place...

After which I'll be going 'dark' for one week, on .... so secret, our team won't be briefed on the destination until just before takeoff.

Happy Memorial Day to all US Steemians, and best wishes to ALL for your best summer ever!

@scan0017 😘