Jordan Rowland

A young man sees someone drive by in a Ferrari with a blonde. He thinks: that guy has everything. Jordan Peterson says look closer. "The woman in the car is a prostitute with a cocaine addiction. Her life is one catastrophe after another." "He's had to lie and cheat his way into this position. He's afraid everything's going to come crashing down on him." "And that's what you're jealous of." He spent 15 minutes explaining what we're actually built for: "We view ourselves as built for pleasure. For consumption. For safety. For egotistical self-aggrandizement and fame." "What are we actually built for? Maximal challenge." "We're built to walk uphill. When you reach the pinnacle, you want to stop and appreciate the vision. But the next thing you want is a higher hill in the distance." "It's from the uphill climb that we derive our value." This is why young men disappear into video games. "That's all acted out in the video game. The active warrior moving uphill with sword in hand. That's dynamic. That's exciting." "They have to act that out in their own life. Video games are not a substitute for life." Start where you are. Even if it's embarrassing. "Humility is starting where you are. If your life is a mess, you have to see that you're the person in that mess." "Your first attempt to fix it might not be something you're particularly proud of." "I saw this in my clinical practice. The first steps people had to take were pretty embarrassing. They'd think: really? That's all I can do?" "Hey, man. Uphill is better than downhill." Here's what most people don't understand about momentum: "You accrue success exponentially. You accrue defeat exponentially too." "Start going downhill, you go downhill faster and faster. Start going uphill, you go uphill faster and faster." "Even if you have to start painfully small, it doesn't matter." Everyone wants confidence. But self-esteem is a lie. "Self-esteem doesn't even exist. It's a pathological concept altogether." "You want confidence that's based in competence. Otherwise it's narcissistic." "How do you develop that? You watch yourself exceed your limits." "And then you think: there's something in me that can exceed my limits. That's your true self." You want a goal you can never fully attain. "Almost all the positive emotion we feel, especially the emotion that fills us with enthusiasm, is experienced in relationship to a goal." "You want a horizon of ever-expanding possibility." "People stake their soul on attaining an instrumental goal. Then they get there and think: now what?" "The answer can't be: I'm going to live in the lap of luxury and never have to do anything." "What do you want to be? A giant infant with a gold bottle? You never have to do anything but lay on your back and suck." "No. You want to be an active warrior moving uphill with your sword in hand." Now here's the dark part: "You need to contemplate your own malevolence. Because you're not only who you are. You're who you could be. For better or worse." "I think it's easier to understand who you could be if you were better once you deeply understand who you could be if you were worse." "You think: I'm way deeper on the negative end than I thought. Much more closely aligned with the forces of hell than I presumed." "That's easy to swallow factually. Not so easy to swallow emotionally. It's a bitter pill." "I don't think you can contemplate the good without contemplating the evil first. It doesn't have the depth." "Fear of God is the beginning of wisdom." Many of his clients are too agreeable. They let everyone else win. "They're resentful and don't know how to stand up for themselves. They're very compassionate by nature. If you're negotiating with them, they'll let you win." "That's not good. You need to win too." "You cannot negotiate unless you can say no. And it causes conflict to say no." The solution sounds counterintuitive. "You have to develop your inner monster a little bit. And that makes you a better person, not a worse person." "It's weird. But that's just how it is." On privilege and how to pay for it: "Some cards are privilege. Maybe you're born intelligent. Symmetrical. Healthy. Into a culture where it's easier not to be deprived. Maybe your parents are rich." "All of that is unearned." "The way you pay for your privilege is with your virtue." "You expiate and atone by doing your best to live the best possible life you can manage. To speak the truth. To treat people with respect. To put your house in order." On envy: "Don't be so sure your position in your room is so damn trivial. It might be your attitude towards it that's trivial." "If you're in dire circumstances, look at how much opportunity you have to make things better." "You don't even want it to be easy."