(Credit: James Razko)
Welcome back friends! It’s a new year and we here at PubTheo have missed you!
The start of a new year is often a time when folks resolve to make changes in their lives, whether to read or exercise more, or eat and drink less. Generally the idea is to make some improvements. While we here at PubTheo have some opinions about new year’s resolutions (i.e. not crazy about them), the idea of thinking about new ways to live your life is an interesting one.
The controversial psychologist and psychology professor Jordan Peterson published in 2018 a self-help book which gets at some of these ideas in a simple way. He proposed what he calls “12 Rules for Life” and suggested that following them will help make life a little more civil and orderly. He also acknowledged that these rules are as much reminders for himself as they are suggestions for others. Some are straightforward and serious, others more whimsical. So here are Peterson’s rules:
- Stand up straight with your shoulders back
- Treat yourself like someone you are responsible for helping
- Make friends with people who want the best for you
- Compare yourself to who you were yesterday, not to who someone else is today
- Do not let your children do anything that make you dislike them
- Set your house in perfect order before you criticize the world
- Pursue what is meaningful (not what is expedient)
- Tell the truth — or, at least, don’t lie
- Assume that the person you are listening to might know something you don’t
- Be precise in your speech
- Do not bother children when they are skateboarding
- Pet a cat when you encounter one on the street
While we can spend some time with Peterson’s list, why don’t we talk about what our own “rules for life” might be instead? Do you have such a set of rules which you follow, or at least try to? Do you think of them like commandments, or more like guidelines. A friend of PubTheo, in suggesting this topic, said one of her’s is to make her bed every single day right after getting out of it. So what are yours?
Join us for the conversation starting at 7pm at Homegrown Brewing Company in downtown Oxford.