What are the most valuable things everyone should know?

Many of you will be aware of Prof Jordan Peterson. He has a bestselling book out at the moment called Twelve Rules for Life which is well worth reading. In the introduction to the book he references an original list, that he had drawn-up to a question on Quora: What are the most valuable things everyone should know?

This is his answer. Some of the 'things' seem insignificant, some seem simple, but they are all in there for a reason.

1. Tell the truth.

2. Do not do things that you hate.

3. Act so that you can tell the truth about how you act.

4. Pursue what is meaningful, not what is expedient.

5. If you have to choose, be the one who does things, instead of the one who is seen to do things.

6. Pay attention.

7. Assume that the person you are listening to might know something you need to know. Listen to them hard enough so that they will share it with you.

8. Plan and work diligently to maintain the romance in your relationships.

9. Be careful who you share good news with.

10. Be careful who you share bad news with.

11. Make at least one thing better every single place you go.

12. Imagine who you could be, and then aim single-mindedly at that.

13. Do not allow yourself to become arrogant or resentful.

14. Try to make one room in your house as beautiful as possible.

15. Compare yourself to who you were yesterday, not to who someone else is today.

16. Work as hard as you possibly can on at least one thing and see what happens.

17. If old memories still make you cry, write them down carefully and completely.

18. Maintain your connections with people.

19. Do not carelessly denigrate social institutions or artistic achievement.

20. Treat yourself as if you were someone that you are responsible for helping.

21. Ask someone to do you a small favour, so that he or she can ask you to do one in the future.

22. Make friends with people who want the best for you.

23. Do not try to rescue someone who does not want to be rescued, and be very careful about rescuing someone who does.

24. Nothing well done is insignificant.

25. Set your house in perfect order before you criticize the world.

26. Dress like the person you want to be.

27. Be precise in your speech.

28. Stand up straight with your shoulders back.

29. Don't avoid something frightening if it stands in your way -- and don't do unnecessarily dangerous things.

30. Do not let your children do anything that makes you dislike them.

31. Do not transform your wife into a maid, or your husband into a servant.

32. Do not hide unwanted things in the fog.

33. Notice that opportunity lurks where responsibility has been abdicated.

34. Read something written by someone great.

35. Pet a cat when you encounter one on the street.

36. Do not bother children when they are skateboarding.

37. Don't let bullies get away with it.

38. Write a letter to the government if you see something that needs fixing -- and propose a solution.

39. Remember that what you do not yet know is more important than what you already know.

40. Be grateful in spite of your suffering.

Which ones of these do you particularly need to work on? I'm definitely working on number 30 this week :ohmy:

A very Toltec way of acting! I like it - I may ya e to get his book, wife said it was free for a while on kindle ... ima have to find a hard back copy now!

I praise the praisers of this amazing article! Such an outpouring of love and affection is rare in these times! Brilliant jedi you all are!!!

PEANUT BUTTER SANDWITCH!!!

Number 39 is probably the most important one. I think this thread is great it shows that no one is perfect and can all work on aspects of our life.

31 I will master one day! It’s part of my own direction in life.

Just finding this. Awesome topic, and a good starting point for people who feel a bit lacking on personal guidance at this moment. Number 2 is hard for me. What do you think he means by hate? True and unbridled hatred? Or something closer to dislike? As part of my profession I often have to do things that I’m not comfortable with, or that I’d rather not have to do, but in doing so I get a lot of fulfillment from conquering my base desires that way. I don’t know if not wanting to do something counts as hate, though…

I really need to improve on 7. I can pay attention to things when I care about them, but sometimes I lose focus quickly if I’m not already sure that they are going to say something important. I should really learn to treat everyone as if they are going to say something I need to hear.

I could definitely improve on 9 and 10. I’m often an open book and overshare. I can see why that might be dangerous. Same for undersharing--being too guarded.

20 is an interesting concept. I love teaching to an open mind, but I’ve never thought of myself as the teacher and the student.

I work in public service, and experience the full spectrum of number 23. Another useful thing here is to try and learn the skill of discerning when someone is not in the position to properly decide for themselves whether or not they want to be rescued (and you recognize that they need to be rescued in one way or another). One example where this can get tricky is in the case of depression. They may have a particularly bad day, and feel as if they do not want to be rescued, but then be thankful for you when they recover. It can be tricky, for sure.

Number 27 is one I need a lot of work on. As you can probably tell from this reply, I tend to ramble a lot. Especially in my speech. I rarely choose what I want to say in its entirety before I say it, and this causes a lot of mental stumbling.

Number 29 is another one I experience a lot of. I always fall back on a risk-reward assessment. If the risk is greater than the potential reward, it isn’t worth doing. If it is equal to or less than the potential reward, why not?

I’m not a parent yet, but 30 seems super important. And I think the same goes for your spouse or significant other. If you just let them do it without giving them the opportunity to change, then you are building resentment for them.

I don’t understand 32.

Some of the ones I feel I am currently making progress on, or have recently made progress on are numbers 3, 5, 6, 8, 14 (I’ve established with my wife that I am officially in charge of the living room, and it feels good to keep it nice!), 18, 33.

I have a little trouble with 39. I understand where it is coming from, but be careful not to lose perishable skills and knowledge. Especially if you do not need it constantly, but it could save your or another’s life

35, watch out for bringing home fleas to your cat, though. Be vigilant, then pet till your heart's content.

Thanks for sharing!

All of these are great--I'm definitely going to try to implement them better. 18 really stuck out to me in particular because I'm at a place where a lot of my friends from college and high school and I have gone our separate ways and done our own things, and I can always do better checking in on people.

Really like this one:

15. Compare yourself to who you were yesterday, not to who someone else is today

Reminds me of something else I read in the last week (I believe from Teddy Roosevelt): "comparison is the thief of joy."

Great article. I would add that I think #1 should be:
1. How it feels to be the 'other' person.

Hmmm... some good things to think on.

Can't say I'm a fan of Peterson, myself, but I can't say that invalidates some of what's presented here, either...

Yes, good things to think on, in this list. This came to me at a good time, thank you.