CYKIAE Season 014 Part 17. What’s Your Purpose, Your Meaning – You Have to Have a Why.

In his book, 12 Rules for Life, Jordan Peterson wrote:

So why not call this a book of "guidelines," a far more relaxed, user-friendly and less rigid sounding term than "rules"?

Because these really are rules. And the foremost rule is that you must take responsibility for your own life. Period.

One might think that a generation that has heard endlessly, from their more ideological teachers, about the rights, rights, rights that belong to them, would object to being told that they would do better to focus instead on taking responsibility. Yet this generation, many of whom were raised in small families by hyper-protective parents, on soft-surface playgrounds, and then taught in universities with "safe spaces" where they don't have to hear things they don't want to—schooled to be risk-averse—has among it, now, millions who feel stultified by this underestimation of their potential resilience and who have embraced Jordan's message that each individual has ultimate responsibility to bear; that if one wants to live a full life, one first sets one's own house in order; and only then can one sensibly aim to take on bigger responsibilities. The extent of this reaction has often moved both of us to the brink of tears.

Sometimes these rules are demanding. They require you to undertake an incremental process that over time will stretch you to a new limit. That requires, as I've said, venturing into the unknown. Stretching yourself beyond the boundaries of your current self requires carefully choosing and then pursuing ideals: ideals that are up there, above you, superior to you—and that you can't always be sure you will reach.

Life is not always easy, not always in your control. How would this generation have coped in the Nazi Death Camps. Dr Frankl answered that question – because he had just done exactly that.

Tag words: Jordan Peterson; 12 Rules for Life; safe spaces; responsibility; life; Dr Frankl; Man’s Search for Meaning; Nazis; meaning of life; Rainer Marie Wilkie; SS; death camps; gas chambers; Auschwitz; Lord's Prayer; Shema Yisrael; victimhood; oppressed; tragic optimism; logotherapy;