12 Rules For Life Book Summary - 12 Rules For Life Book explained in key points

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12 Rules For Life summary

Name: 12 Rules For Life
Rating: 4.3 (2429 reviews)
Author: Jordan B. Peterson

Jordan B. Peterson

An Antidote to Chaos

4.3 (2429 ratings)

33 mins

Table of Contents

12 Rules For Life
summarized in 12 key ideas

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Key idea 1 of 12

What’s in it for me? Get some solid, practical advice to help guide you down the bumpy road of life.

In the story of Pinocchio, a little puppet gets his wish: he loses the strings that had been used to control his life, and gets the opportunity to be a real, independent boy. But what Pinocchio didn’t realize was that this also meant coping with all the dangers of real life, as well as the painful lessons to be learned through honesty, friendship and family.

Classic stories like Pinocchio, as well as many other popular myths, fairy tales and religious parables, all portray the task of finding meaning in life as a balancing act between order and chaos, the familiar and the exotic, or security and adventure.

People continue passing on and rereading historical texts, along with the works of philosophers such as Socrates and Aristotle, because we yearn for universal values and rules to give our lives meaning. And these are the themes that author Jordan B. Peterson has taken into consideration when making a new list of 12 such values to help modern people through today’s chaotic times.

In these blinks, you’ll discover

what lobsters can teach us about confidence;
what a lotus flower can show us about pursuing meaning in life; and
what young skateboarders can tell us about human nature.

Hierarchies are a common facet of life in societies around the world, so give yourself an advantage with good posture.

You’ve probably heard of the phrase, “the pecking order,” right? But do you know where it originated?

It comes from the Norwegian zoologist Thorleif Schjelderup-Ebbe, who was studying barnyard chickens in the 1920s when he noticed that there was a clear hierarchy among these birds. At the top were the healthiest, strongest ones that always got to peck first when the chicken feed came. At the bottom were the weakest chickens, with their feathers falling out, who only got to peck at the leftover crumbs.

Pecking orders like this aren’t limited to chickens; they occur naturally throughout the animal kingdom.

Lobsters, for instance, whether they’re in the ocean or raised in captivity, will aggressively fight over the best and most secure spots for shelter.

Scientists have found that these competitive conflicts will lead to the winners and losers having different chemical balances in their brains. Winners will have a higher ratio of the hormone serotonin to octopamine, while the ratio in losers will tilt in the opposite direction.

These levels can even affect the posture of lobsters: more serotonin will lead to the winners being more agile and upright, and more octopamine makes losers tense and curled up. This difference will factor into further confrontations, as the upright lobsters will appear bigger and more intimidating, causing the tense ones to remain submissive.

As you may have guessed, similar hierarchies and cycles of winning and losing play out among humans.

Studies have shown that those in the grips of alcoholism or depression are less likely to enter a competitive situation, which only reinforces more inactivity and continued low self-esteem and depression.

Conversely, those on a winning streak often present a swaggering and confident body language, which can help them keep their streak alive. Just like lobsters, humans are constantly measuring themselves up against each other, and we associate a person’s intelligence with their physicality.

So if you’re trying to give yourself an advantage, follow the first rule: hold your head high and strike the posture of a winner.

Care for yourself with the same tenderness you would a loved one.

If your dog was sick and the vet prescribed it medication, you wouldn’t second-guess the doctor and leave the prescription unfilled would you? And yet, one-third of people ignore the medical prescriptions they’re given by doctors, which begs the question: why do we take better care of our pets than ourselves?

Part of the reason is that, because we’re always conscious of our own flaws, we feel self-loathing, which, in turn, can lead to unnecessary self-punishment and a sense that we’re unworthy of feeling good. Thus, we take better care of others than ourselves.

The wrong companions can drag you down, so choose your friends wisely.

One of the author’s childhood friends never left the prairies of his northern Canadian hometown, Fairview, Alberta. Instead, he stuck around and ended up among the town’s other ne’er-do-wells.

Every once in a while, the author would return home and catch up with his friend – and each time, his friend’s slow, sad decline became more apparent. What was once youthful potential became aging resentment.

Progress is made by comparing yourself to your past achievements, not to others.

There used to be such a thing as being a big fish in a small pond. But now, thanks to the internet, even the concept of a small community is a thing of the past. These days, we’re all part of a global community, and no matter where you are, there is always someone better than you.

This brings us to the issue of self-criticism. Now, it’s important to be critical of one’s self – if we weren’t then we’d have nothing to strive for, no motivation to better ourselves and our lives would quickly become meaningless.

It is a parent’s duty to raise a responsible and kind child.

If you’ve ever seen parents ignoring a child who’s wreaking havoc, you may have wondered: are they just bad parents or are they being clever by allowing the child to tire himself out?

Approaches to child-rearing have changed over the years, often as a result of the age-old nature-versus-nurture debate, and differing opinions about the kinds of instincts we’re born with.

The world is filled with injustices, but we should not blame others for our lot in life.

There’s no point in mincing words: the world is full of challenges and suffering – but this isn’t cause for despair.

Nevertheless, many people throughout the ages have seen life as so cruel and unfair that drastic responses are justified. The Russian author Leo Tolstoy saw existence as so absurdly unjust that he suggested there were only four valid responses: childlike ignorance, hedonistic pleasure, suicide or struggling on despite it all.

Sacrifice can be a meaningful act, and we should seek meaning over immediate pleasures.

Have you heard the story about the monkey who got caught with his hand in the cookie jar? As the story goes, there was a cookie left inside an open jar, and the opening of the jar was just big enough for the monkey’s hand to enter – but not big enough for his fist to come back out with the treat in it. So, if he insisted on trying to hold onto his treat, he would be stuck.

The moral here is that there is a price for greed: the monkey got himself captured because he refused to just let go of the cookie.

Lies are a common tool of self-deception, but we should strive toward truthful living.

The German philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche believed that you could measure the strength of a person's spirit based upon how much undiluted truth they can tolerate. While truth is often considered a valuable commodity in our culture, we nevertheless tell lies all the time.

One of the main reasons for lying to ourselves and to others is to get what we think we want. The Austrian psychologist Alfred Adler called these life-lies, and they’re characterized as the things we’ll do and say to turn a poorly-thought-out goal into a reality.

Conversations are an opportunity to learn and grow, not compete.

Thousands of years after his death, the ancient philosopher Socrates is still considered one of the wisest men who ever lived. One of the reasons for this is his belief that the only thing he was certain of was that he knew nothing, and this was a driving force in his conversations and his openness to learn.

When you engage in genuine conversation, it should be a similar process to thinking.

The complexity of life should be confronted with clear and precise language.

Life truly is an enormous and complicated tapestry, and yet we tend only to see the isolated parts we need to see. If you’re walking along and see an apple on the ground, you probably don’t think of the branch, tree, roots and soil that were all connected before it fell.

The reason is that we tend only to recognize or pay attention to the things that are either useful to us or stand in our way. The apple catches our attention because it represents food and sustenance. But we don’t consider the tree and the soil because they are of no use for satisfying our needs.

There are bad and oppressive men, but we must avoid suppressing human nature.

In George Orwell’s The Road to Wigan Pier, the author comes to the conclusion that socialism was attracting defenders in England, not because of sympathy for the harsh conditions facing miners, but out of hatred for the rich and powerful.

Today there are similar attitudes toward the male-dominated leadership known as the patriarchy.

Life is hard and full of sorrow, so it’s important to celebrate the small joys in life.

Have you ever had to care for a sick person? It can be one of life’s more difficult challenges. The author’s daughter has been coping with severe arthritis since she was six years old. She has suffered from constant pain, requiring frequent injections and multiple surgeries for joint replacements.

If you had a daughter in this situation, you might think life is unfair – but it’s important to recognize that the dark bits of pain, suffering and sorrow are what give the good moments their value.

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What is 12 Rules For Life about?

12 Rules For Life (2018) provides readers with an inventory of life’s most pressing concerns and the issues that have been present in the human psyche since ancient times. Author Jordan B. Peterson has collected some of the most enduring philosophical and religious assertions, as well as the lessons from our most cherished tales, to provide us with 12 guidelines to ensure a life of meaning. Drawing on philosophy, psychology, history and myth, these are clear and consistent principles that everyone can live by.

Best quote from 12 Rules For Life

To stand up straight with your shoulders back is to accept the terrible responsibility of life, with eyes wide open. It means deciding to voluntarily transform the chaos of potential into the realities of habitable order.

—Jordan B. Peterson

Who should read 12 Rules For Life?

Students of psychology
Readers seeking meaning in their lives
People interested in the lessons of mythology

About the Author

Jordan Peterson is a professor of psychology at the University of Toronto, as well as a clinical psychologist and cultural critic. He has garnered widespread publicity and media coverage for his often controversial YouTube videos and public appearances, in which he critiques political correctness.

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