Review of :

Sam Lesher
Sep 7, 2018 · 3 min read

Jordan Peterson is a psychology professor and retired clinical psychologist based out of Toronto, Canada. He first came into the public spotlight when he opposed compelled speech legislation that would make it a crime to not use a person’s preferred pronoun. He is a proponent of free speech and has been wrapped up controversy in the media as the extreme left tries to identify him as an alt right hate monger, even though he has on numerous occasions denounced the alt right. I for one am not so much interested in the politics that he has somehow found himself entangled in, but more of his lectures on how to be in the world, his psychological interpretations of the biblical stories even though I do not identify as a Christian in the slightest. An interesting cultural note to take notice of is that through his intellectual explanation of the biblical stories, a new terminology has arisen. “Christian atheist” is a new terminology that at first sounds like an oxymoron, is in fact actually interesting because some atheist have found his interpretations stripped of dogmatic and supernatural origins to be very relative to their lives, hence the term.

Each chapter in the book starts with, on the surface, a rule that seems so commonplace that it needs no explanation. This is where the intriguing part of this book occurs. He delves into the deep meaning behind these rules and expresses certain truths to them that probably have never occurred to you.

An example would be rule number three which seems to be painfully obvious. It will make you reevaluate some of your current friendships, as well as help you to make better decisions on whom you let into your life. He uses personal stories as well as stories from his clinical practice with dabbles here and there of more intellectually minded advice from his years and years of psychological study.

Rule six is probably something that you may have not tended much thought to. You might think that some people are just disorganized and messy, and this in my experience seems to be more probable than not. He has a phrase that seemed to catch fire across the Internet, which is peculiar at first glance because it is so simple.

“Clean up your room.”

Without delving too deep into this statement, the general idea is that your room is an externalization of your mind.

Here is a short clip if you are more interested in the subject. He can articulate it much better than I could ever write here.

I would highly recommend this book even if you do not feel your life is in chaos. It is much more than just a self help book from someone who just writes feel good motivational statements. He calls on you to take personal responsibility for your life, and at times look deep into yourself truthfully, which can not be the most joyous of things to say the least. I can without a doubt say that you will take away snippets of knowledge that will undoubtedly help you live a better life.

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