Rules #1, #2, and #3 all reflect a brilliant mind trying to put a philosophy down on paper, no easy task for a brilliant mind that knows too much for its own good! But this Rule #4 was too much, too much bouncing off the walls, too much circling around multiple points with barely a thread connecting the thoughts. I had to do something different with this chapter. Actually analyze it! Dr. Peterson’s Rule #4: ‘Compare yourself to who you were yesterday, not to who someone else is today’ wends and winds, bends and meanders so much that you seriously get lost as to what his actual point is! So my ‘summary’ below is a series of points that I pulled out of each section in an attempt to tease out his actual thesis and meaning. I think I succeeded!

Thesis

We find important, value, in what we focus on. So focus on the Good, the Better, and all the petty things will fade in importance.

Summary

If we focus on petty things, than petty things will be of importance to us. If we focus on the good, than the good will become important to us. Stop chasing things that are impossible to catch, the success of ‘others’ (there will always be an ‘other’ who is more successful than us), petty/base goals (pleasures will never be enouth), or even our own unhappiness – humans are wired to look at ‘now’ as inherently inferior to tomorrow’s ‘better’. Look at what you want – and take those small, daily, tiny steps to make that a reality. BUT! (and this is a really big BUT…) you must know what you want! You must ‘know thyself’. And for true happiness, make the betterment of your life, your family’s life, your friend’s life your ‘want’. You will find that the higher you elevate your gaze, the happier you will be because you will be focused on ‘better’ – a higher road.

My breakdown of this chapter – in an attempt to untangle the tangled web he weaves…

The Internal Critic

• It is too easy to compare your current state with EVERYBODY in the entire World.
• We have an internal voice that is hyper critical and compares us to everybody else – it is how we know our place in society, but ‘society’ is now too big for it.
• Stop listening to this voice

Many Good Games

• Redefine ‘success’ and ‘failure’.
• it isn’t black and white, but gradations
• There are many games, not just the one you are fixated on
• If you are always winning, than you aren’t growing
• Our game is unique to us as individual adults
• Who are you? What do you want? Do you even know?
• What motivates you do get up and do something?
• Are you advocating what you want? Do your closest friends and family KNOW what you would ask from them, if you actually did?
• Full circle, back to Dare to be dangerous… and truthful.
• What are your resenting? Have you asked yourself why you resent that? Does anybody else around you know that you are resenting that? Have you told them?

The Point of our Eyes (or, Take Stock)

• We look at what we are interested in and,
• we are interested in what we look at.
• We are unhappy with ‘now’, thinking ‘later’ will be better
• What are you doing to make ‘later’ better?
• Who are you? What are your flaws? What tiny thing could you do today to make you, your life, your situation a tiny bit better?
• Happiness is always to be found in the journey uphill, not the fleeting sense of satisfaction awaiting at the next peak.
• negotiate gently with yourself.

What you want and what you see

• you see what you aim at
• you aim at what you see
• Life doesn’t have the problem, you do.
• Don’t want to abandon your dream? How has it been working for you so far?
• I want whatever might be better than just my life being better
• what you believe is what you see
• you don’t understand anything
• you didn’t even know that you were blind

Old Testament God and New Testament God

• Turn your eyes upward
• better for you, better for your friends, better for your enemies

Pay Attention

• Wake up
• Notice SOMETHING that bothers you
• What can you fix?
• What are you willing to fix?
• attend to the highest good.

My reaction

I had to look up whether Dr. Peterson is an avowed Christian or not (he isn’t…yet). He tries so very hard to avoid being a full Christian theologist! I am starting to think that is why his train of thought is so very tangled – he is trying to apply a secular justification for very simple Biblical truths. Here, his entire chapter could be summarized with one Christian hymn:

Turn your eyes upon Jesus, and the things of Earth will grow strangely dim.

or, a Bible verse from the New Testament:

Philippians 4:8

Finally, brethren, whatsoever things are true, whatsoever things are honest, whatsoever things are just, whatsoever things are pure, whatsoever things are lovely, whatsoever things are of good report; if there be any virtue, and if there be any praise, think on these things.

Focus and move towards what is Good, what is lovely, the higher path – and your gaze will be filled with the good, the lovely, and the higher path. Very simple concept really. It is like watching a fish fight a fly that is lodged firmly in its lip. Dr. Peterson seems to be struggling hard against going ‘all-in’ on Christianity, but his philosophy is so strongly rooted in Christian philosophy that he keeps circling around and around, trying to justify the truths, but trying so very hard to avoid ‘being a Christian’!

I am rooting for him as much as I am appreciating his thoughts play out on paper!

—– Rule #5: Do not let your children do anything that will make you dislike them —>