Transform Your Life: Lessons from Jordan Peterson on Pursuing Passion and Practicing Virtue

as soon as you do what you really love then you expose your nakedness right you say this is what I'm really like instead you just shove that under the bed and you do something you don't care about at all and then if people judge you it doesn't matter but the problem with that is you there's no life there there's no Force there's no you and without that the suffering will do you in and then you'll become a bad person and that's not a good thing so you have to see what it is that you find meaningful whatever that is and then you have to fight for it you have to fight against yourself you have to fight against other people because what do they know about it you have to fight God's nature maybe even to stand up for what it is that sustains you and that takes courage it also takes honesty partly because if you're not honest you can't trust your own intuition so this is an important thing you think about this and this is why virtue is a necessity if you lie to yourself or to other people then you you corrupt the structure that you use to interact with being you corrupt it and if you corrupt it then if you listen to it it will guide you the wrong way or maybe it'll be so corrupted you can't listen to it at all then you have to listen to somebody else and that might not be a good thing especially if you're already corrupted because then you'll listen to the person who tells you to do what you really want to do but won't admit it to yourself and that explains how Hitler found all his followers they'd abandon their own mode of being and made them bitter and resentful and empty and Hollow and weak and cruel and then they train their leader to tell them what they wanted to hear if you're honest which is painful you'll see that a lot of things you say aren't real you'll see a lot of things that you do make you weak you'll see that a lot of people you associate with are probably not good for you and then you have a lot of difficult choices to make you can stop with the obvious lying that'll clear things up for you a lot and you can start communicating with people one of the things I teach my clients is if you're resentful say something about it say something about it you tell the person look what you asked me to do is making me resentful now if they're your wife or husband or someone you love you should listen to them because they might say well grow up take your damn responsibility and leave me alone and maybe and maybe they're right or maybe they're a bit of a bully and you have to say quit pushing me around and then maybe you have to have an argument with an honest argument where you say look this is what's happening to me and they say look this is what's happening to me and you battle it out until you reach some sort of settlement and then you don't have to be resentful anymore then you won't be mean and cruel and vicious and you have to be honest in order to do that here's a here's a way of thinking about error you don't exactly know what you're doing so how do you get to the point where you know what you're doing I think follow your internal intuitions be honest about it and what will happen is a star will appear and guide you the star is whatever makes your life meaningful and maybe you'll take some tentative steps in that direction and you'll get little ways and you'll think no that's wrong and then the thing that makes your life meaningful will appear over there and then you take a few tentative steps in that direction and but as you step and walk towards these things you change and as you change you get wiser and what happens is if you keep following these things that make your life meaningful then you correct yourself across time you see the thing there and that's wrong and you see it there and that's wrong and you see it there and that's wrong but you keep chasing it as you chase it you move forward and as you move forward and you do things and you learn from your mistakes because you're honest and you're watching you get wiser and wiser and the consequence of all those mistakes is you'll self-correct the mistakes in 20 years down the road maybe you won't be making so many mistakes they say it takes ten thousand dollars to be an expert at something so you would need ten thousand dollars of practice following what it is that you need to follow I'm going to close with two things I've come to the conclusion as a consequence of studying the things I've been telling you about that belief has a religious substructure if you go all the way down into someone's belief structure right to the bottom what you find are religious presuppositions they the person might not agree but I don't think that matters I think generally people don't know here's an old religious presuppositions older than Christianity I suppose Christianity is the most powerful proponent of this Viewpoint there's a heaven and there's a hell and you should live your life so that you end up in one of them what's happened to Christianity is that that's an afterlife thing I don't think it is an afterlife I think it's a now thing I see people who are in hell all the time you can see them if you walk down blur Street I'm not kidding it's it's no joke if you walk by someone in hell you can't look at them you won't look at them you'll you'll give them a wide birth and if you look at them and you really look at them they'll either become aggressive or ashamed because they do not want you to see where they are because they don't want to see where they are and by the same token Heaven's a real place too and now and then you're in it but you don't notice because you don't believe in it there's an old gospel an Austin gospel that was dug up in 1957 impossible of Thomas and in the Gospel of Thomas Christ says the Kingdom of Heaven is spread out on the Earth but men do not see it and I don't think that's a metaphor or or maybe it is a metaphor it's a deep metaphor it means that life human life is very expansive and we live in the middle it's kind of a mediocre middle often and at one extreme there's hell and the Other Extreme is heaven and we bounce back and forth between them without really noticing and I could say Well here here's something to consider if the things you're doing are landing you in hell stop unless you want to be there and you know if you think all you have to do is think about your life over the last year you you can be certain that you can call to mind times when you would have rather that did not happen and so the lesson from that is clear don't set up those conditions anymore and by the same token if you watch yourself you can tell when you're where you want to be and I could say well if you're where you want to be and that's really the right place then all you should ever do is practice to be there the Kingdom of Heaven is spread out on the Earth but men do not see it so this is what I would say about virtue virtue first is the attempt to see that heaven and it's a questioning thing and I'm not saying it's the same for everyone I don't believe that at all because people are individuals just to see it and the second thing is to attempt to live in it and I truly believe I truly believe that there is nothing that you can do that's better for being not only for yourself but for everyone that you interact with none of you know your potential people are amazing creatures you know that people can be abysmally awful but they can be as remarkably good as they are abysmally awful I think it's rare but it's not Beyond the realm of possibility what's a human possibility well no one knows maybe it's it's near infinite we know nothing about our own being or about our relationship with the totality of things we may occupy a more important place than we all think and the consequences of our actions our virtues are our lack thereof Echo May Echo far beyond what we want to believe so I would say try to find out what's good for you just watch don't listen to anybody else or maybe you should maybe they'll give you some hints you know but you got to sort it out for yourself and when you find out what's good for you and what isn't do the things that are good for you until you like being alive until you're thrilled to be alive [Music] see what happens and I would also suggest there's nothing you could possibly do that will be more profound [Music] and useful than that that's all thank you thank you [Music]

Channel: QuotiVolution

Views: 15,022

Keywords: virtue, personal growth, Jordan Peterson, self-discovery, good life, fulfillment, meaning, heaven moments, positive psychology, self-improvement, Notable quotes, Motivational quotes, Inspirational quotes, Literary genius, Wit and wisdom, Thought-provoking quotes, Inspiring words, Famous quotes, Enlightenment through quotes, Quotes for self-discovery, Captivating insights, Igniting inspiration, Literary inspiration, Wisdom of the ages, QuotiVolution, philosophers

Id: aMDnaNs9ugk

Length: 9min 24sec (564 seconds)

Published: Sat Jul 08 2023