12 Rules for Life: An Antidote to Chaos

by Jordan B. Peterson

Overview

Notes From Your Bookseller

The title makes some pretty lofty promises, but go bravely into these pages knowing that they contain not just answers and advice, but a narrative voice that makes it easy to digest. Peterson is nothing if not thought-provoking and original in his attempt to grapple and subdue chaos.

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What are the most valuable things that everyone should know?

Acclaimed clinical psychologist Jordan B Peterson has influenced the modern understanding of personality, and now he has become one of the world's most popular public thinkers, with his lectures on topics from the Bible to romantic relationships to mythology drawing tens of millions of viewers. In an era of unprecedented change and polarizing politics, his frank and refreshing message about the value of individual responsibility and ancient wisdom has resonated around the world.

In this book, he provides twelve profound and practical principles for how to live a meaningful life, from setting your house in order before criticising others to comparing yourself to who you were yesterday, not someone else today. Happiness is a pointless goal, he shows us. Instead we must search for meaning, not for its own sake, but as a defence against the suffering that is intrinsic to our existence.

Drawing on vivid examples from the author's clinical practice and personal life, cutting-edge psychology and philosophy, and lessons from humanity's oldest myths and stories, 12 Rules for Life offers a deeply rewarding antidote to the chaos in our lives: eternal truths applied to our modern problems.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780345816023
Publisher:	Random House of Canada, Limited
Publication date:	01/23/2018
Pages:	448
Sales rank:	5,469
Product dimensions:	6.30(w) x 9.10(h) x 1.60(d)

About the Author

JORDAN B. PETERSON, raised and toughened in the frigid wastelands of Northern Alberta, has flown a hammer-head roll in a carbon-fiber stunt-plane, explored an Arizona meteorite crater with astronauts, and built a Kwagu'l ceremonial bighouse on the upper floor of his Toronto home after being invited into and named by that Canadian First Nation. He's taught mythology to lawyers, doctors and business people, consulted for the UN Secretary General, helped his clinical clients manage depression, obsessive-compulsive disorder, anxiety, and schizophrenia, served as an adviser to senior partners of major Canadian law firms, and lectured extensively in North America and Europe. With his students and colleagues at Harvard and the University of Toronto, Dr. Peterson has published over a hundred scientific papers, transforming the modern understanding of personality, while his book Maps of Meaning: The Architecture of Belief revolutionized the psychology of religion. The author lives in Toronto, ON. www.jordanbpeterson.com

Read an Excerpt

A RELIGIOUS PROBLEM
(Continues…)

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Excerpted from "12 Rules for Life"
by .
Copyright © 2018 Jordan B. Peterson.
Excerpted by permission of Random House of Canada.
All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
Excerpts are provided by Dial-A-Book Inc. solely for the personal use of visitors to this web site.

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Table of Contents

Foreword Norman Doidge vii

Overture xxv

Rule 1 Stand up straight with your shoulders back 1

Rule 2 Treat yourself like someone you are responsible for helping 31

Rule 3 Make friends with people who want the best for you 67

Rule 4 Compare yourself to who you were yesterday, not to who someone else is today 85

Rule 5 Do not let your children do anything that makes you dislike them 113

Rule 6 Set your house in perfect order before you criticize the world 147

Rule 7 Pursue what is meaningful (not what is expedient) 161

Rule 8 Tell the truth-or, at least, don't lie 203

Rule 9 Assume that the person you are listening to might know something you don't 233

Rule 10 Be precise in your speech 259

Rule 11 Do not bother children when they are skateboarding 285

Rule 12 Pet a cat when you encounter one on the street 335

Coda 355

Acknowledgements 369

Endnotes 371

Index 390

Editorial Reviews

#1 NATIONAL AND INTERNATIONAL BESTSELLER 

“Jordan Peterson, has become one of the best-known Canadians of this generation. In the intellectual category, he’s easily the largest international phenomenon since Marshall McLuhan. . . . By combining knowledge of the past with a full-hearted optimism and a generous attitude toward his readers and listeners, Peterson generates an impressive level of intellectual firepower.” —Robert Fulford, National Post

“Like the best intellectual polymaths, Peterson invites his readers to embark on their own intellectual, spiritual and ideological journeys into the many topics and disciplines he touches on. It’s a counter-intuitive strategy for a population hooked on the instant gratification of ideological conformity and social media ‘likes,’ but if Peterson is right, you have nothing to lose but your own misery.” —Toronto Star

“In a different intellectual league. . . . Peterson can take the most difficult ideas and make them entertaining. This may be why his YouTube videos have had 35 million views. He is fast becoming the closest that academia has to a rock star.” —The Observer

“Grow up and man up is the message from this rock-star psychologist. . . . [A] hardline self-help manual of self-reliance, good behaviour, self-betterment and individualism that probably reflects his childhood in rural Canada in the 1960s. As with all self-help manuals, there’s always a kernel of truth. Formerly a Harvard professor, now at the University of Toronto, Peterson retains that whiff of cowboy philosophy—one essay is a homily on doing one thing every day to improve yourself. Another, on bringing up little children to behave, is excellent…. [Peterson] twirls ideas around like a magician.” —Melanie Reid, The Times

“You don’t have to agree with [Peterson’s politics] to like this book for, once you discard the self-help label, it becomes fascinating. Peterson is brilliant on many subjects. . . . So what we have here is a baggy, aggressive, in-your-face, get-real book that, ultimately, is an attempt to lead us back to what Peterson sees as the true, the beautiful and the good—i.e. God. In the highest possible sense of the term, I suppose it is a self-help book. . . . Either way, it’s a rocky read, but nobody ever said God was easy.” —Bryan Appleyard, The Times

“One of the most eclectic and stimulating public intellectuals at large today, fearless and impassioned.” —The Guardian

“Someone with not only humanity and humour, but serious depth and substance. . . . Peterson has a truly cosmopolitan and omnivorous intellect, but one that recognizes that things need grounding in a home if they are ever going to be meaningfully grasped. . . . As well as being funny, there is a burning sincerity to the man which only the most withered cynic could suspect.” —The Spectator

“Peterson has become a kind of secular prophet who, in an era of lobotomized conformism, thinks out of the box. . . . His message is overwhelmingly vital.” —Melanie Philips, The Times

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