48 Rules of Life

The controversial Canadian psychologist Jordan Peterson has a new book out titled 12 Rules of Life: An Antidote to Chaos. His rules are:

1. Stand up straight with your shoulders back.
2. Treat yourself like you would someone you are responsible for helping.
3. Make friends with people who want the best for you.
4. Compare yourself with who you were yesterday, not with who someone else is today.
5. Do not let your children do anything that makes you dislike them.
6. Set your house in perfect order before you criticise the world.
7. Pursue what is meaningful (not what is expedient).
8. Tell the truth – or, at least, don’t lie.
9. Assume that the person you are listening to might know something you don’t.
10. Be precise in your speech.
11. Do not bother children when they are skate-boarding.
12. Pet a cat when you encounter one on the street.

The “12 rules” has become a kind of meme. Here are economist Tyler Cowen’s 12 rules (more in the link):

1. Assume your temperament will always be somewhat childish and impatient, and set your rules accordingly, knowing that you cannot abide by rules for rules sake.
2. Study the symbolic systems of art, music, literature. and religion, if only to help yourself better understand alternative points of view in political and intellectual discourse.
3. When the price goes up, buy less.
4. Marry well.
5. Organize at least some significant portion of your knowledge of the world in terms of place, whether by country, region, or city.
6. When shooting the basketball, give it more arc than you think is necessary.  Consistently.
7. Learn how to learn from those who offend you.
8. Cultivate mentors, and be willing to serve as mentors to others.  This never loses its importance.
9. I don’t know.
10. Heed Cowen’s Three Laws.
11. Do not heed Cowen’s Three Laws.
12. Every now and then read or reread Erasmus, Montaigne, Homer, Shakespeare, or Joyce’s Ulysses, so that you do not take any rules too seriously.

From economist Russ Roberts (more in the link):

1. Learn to enjoy saying “I don’t know.”
2. Find something healthy to worship.
3. Make Shabbat.
4. Eat dinner with your family as often as possible and always without devices.
5. Read. Read. Read.
6. Tithe (wisely) to help create community and care for others.
7. Don’t take the job that pays the most money.
8. Give up a lot to be at a funeral.
9. If your child offers you a hand to hold, take it.
10. Know yourself.
11. Hold your anger for a day.
12. Be kind–everyone is in a battle.

From Megan McArdle (more in the link):

1. Be kind.
2. Politics is not the most important thing in the world.
3. Always order one extra dish at a restaurant, an unfamiliar one.
4. Give yourself permission to be bad.
5. Go to the party even when you don’t want to.
6. Save 25 percent of your income.
7. Don’t just pay people compliments; give them living eulogies.
8. That thing you kinda want to do someday? Do it now.
9. [H]uman beings are often splendid, the world is often glorious, and nature, red in tooth and claw, also invented kindness, charity and love. Believe in that.
10. Don’t try to resolve fundamental conflicts with your spouse or roommates.
11. Be grateful.
12. Always make more dinner rolls than you think you can eat.

Glean what you will.