Clean Your Room

Rules 6 of Jordan Peterson’s 12 Rules for Life is “Set your house in perfect order before you criticize the world.” Basically, clean your room.

You might not like this. I didn’t at first. I have good ideas and think I can change things. Cleaning my room is a way to procrastinate my purpose.

If you don’t like this idea, just try it. Clean your room and keep it clean for a week. Notice if you feel any different, if you think any different, if you are any different. It’s an easy experiment for a worthwhile potential.

Dr. Peterson recognized that it’s not about being clean–it’s about taking responsibility for the smallest domain you and I can possibly control. Our rooms represent more than where we sleep. Our rooms represent the chaos within our own minds.

Create order in your room, create order in your life, then create order in the world.

Try everything. If it works for you, make it your own.

Billiards

For almost 23 years I thought being good at billiards meant you could sink a shot from anywhere on the table. You would make a shot then go wherever the cue ball ends up.

But professional players don’t leave that much up to chance. Their game is dictated by setting up the next shot.

They don’t shoot and then aimlessly follow the cue ball. They play the shot in such a way that the next shot is set up perfectly.

Not much is left to chance when there’s a lot on the line.

How to Be Overwhelmed

  1. Turn off your phone
  2. Lie on the ground
  3. Take 6 deep breaths
  4. Be still
  5. List what should be accomplished today
  6. List what must be accomplished today
  7. List what can be accomplished today
  8. Plan your day
  9. Remember past accomplishments
  10. Do your best

Taking Notes

I’m a phenomenal notetaker. Legible, too. There was never a professor who talked faster than I could write. My scribing made lectures enjoyable; all I had to do was sit and write what I heard and what I thought. It was a meditation.

The only problem is note taking is entirely useless in the real world. Just download https://otter.ai and you’ll never need another notebook.

What I thought was a valuable skill was only as valuable as it made me feel accomplished. The act itself was replaceable. It served its purpose of helping me learn, but aside from that is futile.

You are spending a lot of time crafting a replaceable skill. What is it?

[Don’t] Be a Dog

We should be like dogs: curious, present, accepting, able to be trained, and satisfied with little.

We should not be like dogs: blindly obeying the master, easily triggered, distracted, rolling around in shit, overprotective of possessions.

Dogs can teach us a lot. Even more if we see both sides of them.

Tip your servers

Most of us forgot what going out to eat was like. It’s been a while since someone took our orders, served us, and made our meals more enjoyable.

The next time you go out to eat, remember that your server wasn’t making money for a few months. Now, servers are working harder than ever, communicating more diligently and clearly than ever. With a sweaty mask on.

20% should be the minimum allowed for servers. 30% should be standard.

Covid showed us that we don’t need servers to eat restaraunt food, but dining is far less enjoyable without them. Let’s be generous to those who curate experiences for us, who set the table for us, who make us feel at home.

Let’s start tipping like whatever we don’t tip would be left in our bank accounts when we died. Which it will be.

Ambition

I’m trying to make sense of my wild life so I don’t get caught in the busy. New job, new home, graduate school, long term relationship, 3 podcasts, writing a book, while trying to stay healthy and grow closer to God.

Overwhelm is around every corner. It’s easy to be anxious and hit a wall. Not enough sleep, too much bad food, lack of energy.

It’s hard to be grounded. To be certain about my principles and the change I can make in my life today. To put my head down and create something meaningful of my life.

Ambition plus anxiety is a disaster.

Ambition plus rituals, habits, and routines is unstoppable.

Six word memoir

Wake up! Slow down, drink wine.

Standards

The conventional response to an increasingly unfamiliar, de-normalized world is more standards. More uniformity. Rules and regulations help the hierarchy feel like there is still order.

But the world is in utter chaos.

An alternate solution would be to do away with standards for the year and yield to the destabilization. Let teachers be generative and let students learn to be generous. Invent new ways of doing things instead of hanging on to old models.

Call it creative destruction or call it progress. Cab companies tried to sue Uber. Things change, and leaning into the change is the only way to stay alive.