YOU VS YOU - Jordan Peterson (Best Motivational Speech)

you should love and feel good about the person you are now and that's actually a dubious proposition for a variety of reasons one is whatever yourself is is not only what you are yourself is also what you could become and so to love yourself properly is not only to love what you are who you are whatever that means to love who you could become now one of the things I've observed is that it's very demoralizing for the typical young person who's miserable and maladjusted psychologically and socially if you just go to them and say well you should feel good about yourself because they think you're good just the way you are you're perfect just the way you are you should accept yourself just the way you are it's like well okay so what is that say about who I should become is that just now off the table because I'm already good enough in every way so am I done or something what about who I should become and then well how should I feel good about myself when I don't because I'm not getting along with myself I'm anxious and hopeless and nihilistic and depressed and I'm not getting along with other people so how is it that that's all somehow something I should feel good about without being deluded and these are complicated questions because you don't wanna beat yourself with a stick which might be the opposite of that so feel bad about yourself it's like no be judicious and merciful with yourself and think that you need to accept yourself in some way the way a mother accepts a child but the maternal spirit is not the only spirit that governs the love that a child requires properly you have the paternal spirit of encouragement as well which is well we need to shelter and protect you and to provide for your security the way you are but you could be a lot better and should be and I have faith that you could be which is the love that I'm delivering to what you're becoming rather than what you are and so love that you direct towards yourself is partly directed towards that maternal care that sort of the minimum precondition for basic flourishing combined with an attitude of encouragement towards the possibilities of your being and so that's a much more sophisticated so called self love part because it's the kind of love that envisions you as something that unfolds across time and it's it's a much richer conception because it also implies that there's a responsible adventure to your life you're not all you could be and there's pain in that and there's the necessity for a certain amount of judgment about that and even a certain amount of exclusion because what you are that is insufficient in some sense should be not be allowed to propagate further what if it's conjoined with encouragements like yeah you're in a rough situation there kiddo but you know here's some things about you that are virtuous and good and they're pretty powerful actually and if you just made those more manifest you could dispense with a lot of this immaturity and misery and you could expand yourself out into life physically and psychologically and you could start walking this pathway that makes things better and the thing is is that as soon as you start walking the pathway that makes things better then things immediately become better because your whole orientation changes and you know if you're in a bad place but you're escaping that's pretty positive even if it's a bad place you might think well still bad but it's better it's like well that's a lot that's a lot better than a bad place that's getting worse that's for sure cause that's hell hell is a bad place that's getting worse that's for sure and so if you take the bad place and it's getting better well it's already not hell that's a start and so this notion of love we've confused this with the maternal instinct for an infant it's like cause an infant under 6 months is like well of course your attitude towards an infant is you're exactly okay the way you are but that's not what you do to any child that's older than 6 months you start laying down some criteria for becoming for improvement and some of that improvement cause we can define it well there's nothing more perfect than a child than a baby it's like yeah but that's not true if the baby's 14 years old right it's true if the baby's 6 months old and actually a baby but by nine months well the child is gonna be start to interact socially and now there's some principles that the child has to learn to abide by so that social interaction is optimized you want to take the infant who's entirely dependent and turn them into something that's autonomous and then socially integrated and then socially integrated in a manner that's moving them towards individual responsibility and the love is not only love that's devoted to what they are at any point which is that encompassing maternal love say but the love that says yeah kid you know we're pretty happy you're you're around but the the new you is gonna even be better and that's encouragement and that's part of love it's half of love that's for sure and you wanna direct that to yourself as well it's like you don't wanna judge who you are so harshly that you just destroy yourself and everything is cast into the pit you want to take a look at yourself and say look you know you're a person among persons and you have intrinsic worth and you have your flaws your sins your your domain of ignorance and inadequacy but that doesn't mean that you're entirely worthless because of that you have a base level value that's intrinsic worth let's say that that's reflective of the fact that you made in the divine image in the most fundamental sense you have intrinsic worth and that's do a certain degree of baseline love but there's the becoming problem it's like well especially when you're young most of you is still in the becoming face and so why wouldn't encouragement be the hallmark of love it's like get the hell up get your act together adopt some responsibility put your life together develop a vision expand yourself beyond the narrow confines that are causing your misery and we think you can do it you could do it you shouldn't do it the world would be better off if you did it you'd be doing better if you did it everything would work out better why would we not work to make everything work out better and you're the person who could do it and you tell young people that they think no one ever told me that before in that way and they think well maybe I should get my act together and then they go out and try to get their act together then they think well huh turned out that worked and I'm less miserable I could try doing a little bit on a broader scale and they tried out anything wow people seem a lot happier with me I have more friends and I'm more popular and I'm little more physically attractive cause I'm standing up a little bit straighter and then away they go and unfold man be a force for good in the world and that'll be the adventure of your life aimless is not nothing aimless is bad Nietzsche said if you had a why you could bear anyhow most people find the meaning in their life through responsibility I believe the the fundamental religious truth of the idea that life is suffering it's suffering because we're mortal and fragile and because we're also subject to malevolence at our own hands into the at the hands of others it's a it's a constant existential problem and that can make you bitter and can make you hopeless and nihilistic and depressed and anxious and pro and likely to abuse substances various sorts as as a medication or an escape it can augur you in a very large number of ways and I'm suggesting to people that there is a way out of that and the way out is to confront that forth rightly and to adopt responsibility in your own life and to try to make the world a better place and that it's necessary to do that and that if you don't do that that things go badly I think the deck is stacked against everyone to some degree because life is very difficult and we all die so but people some people do have it harder than others and and all of us have it very hard at sometimes in our lives it's like well what's the what's the alternative you take responsibility for that and try to struggle uphill because the alternative makes everything worse find something in your life that's so worthwhile doing that the fact that you're going to suffer is justifiable yeah life's rough no doubt about it and if good luck comes your way then you should be grateful for it and if happiness manages to manifest itself you should be grateful for that too so then you might ask yourself for what's the best antidote to the discomfort of life and you might say well it's comfort and I suppose that's what you act out when you swaddle a baby but a better antidote is something like adventure to excellence and that's far better antidote to suffering than the mere absence of suffering so nothing than the mere absence of suffering so not to say that the mere absence of suffering that's not nothing I've been a psychotherapist for 20 years I've seen things you can't imagine horror shows that you can't fathom and people who have been hurt in so many ways so many dimensions it's like should they be bitter should they be resentful should they become violent these things don't help they have to struggle uphill despite their excess burden and it's responsibility not guilt it's the female crucifixion so and that's exemplified best in while the best portrayal of that I've seen is Michelangelo's Pieta it's a statue of Mary and she has Christ's body on her as an adult on her lap and young is broken and destroyed and you know she's displaying that that's that's the bravery of a mother to allow that to happen but not only that to to facilitate it solitated here you go kid where you go where you go why it's dangerous out there yeah no kidding it's more dangerous here if you stay with me by a lot so you might lose your body out there in the world but if you stay here you lose your soul you know I mean it's a pretty competitive world there's lots of competition for young men in particular there's competition for status and limited resources and for the attention of women and just because you're nice doesn't necessarily mean that you come out particularly well in those competitions

Channel: Jordan Peterson Rules for Life

Views: 51,913

Keywords: Jordan Peterson, self-improvement, personal development, motivational speech, self-competition, self-growth, Jordan Peterson motivation, inner strength, mindset shift, overcoming self-doubt, self-reflection, success mindset, Jordan Peterson speech, self-discipline, life coaching, inspirational speech, Jordan Peterson advice, goal setting, self-mastery, mental strength, personal journey, life lessons, positive mindset, self-motivation, Jordan Peterson inspirational, self-development

Id: a3SGwRo3nTc

Length: 10min 55sec (655 seconds)

Published: Fri Feb 02 2024