11:11 Make a wish - 11 Rules for Life
11 Rules for Life
Ever since Jordan Peterson’s book 12 Rules for Life came out and topped the Wall Street Journal’s best sellers list lots of people have done some thinking and come out with their own rules – so here’s mine.
Broken up in the follow sections for your ease:
How to be a better You
The Outside World & Your Place in It
Loved Ones
Special thanks to Peterson, Malcom Gladwell’s podcasts, my great aunt and uncle in Ohio, the nice people who run the skydiving company in Dayton and one of my close friends in West Virginia for the inspiration and content.
How to be a better You: Intro
Notice the word “better”, this is under my personal assumption that we will forever be on a journey to better ourselves. In his book Peterson constantly states that “life is suffering,” I asked my great aunt (whose 88 years old) about this and she replied with “you’re too young to understand,” and while that may be true, with 23 years of life lived I can say that life seems full of challenges and often like an uphill climb. I couldn’t tell you what the end point is but I can tell you that without the challenges it loses much of its meaning. The joy is in the work more than in the end goal, as generally that goal becomes replaced with another, larger more difficult one when it is reached. The trick is to enjoy every step the most you can, take breaks when needed to not burn out, embrace challenges as opportunities to advance yourself and grow.
Some studies have shown that one’s cognitive capacity peaks at 25 years of age, after that it’s just building experience and that peaks at around 40-45 years of age. So you can argue that “you’re too old” to better yourself; however, you can also take those numbers and say that if you’re over 45 now is the best time to change, now you have all the experience and cognitive capacity to truly know yourself and know to navigate that process.
While you may never experience the “best” you but there can certainly be a better you – one that will increase your quality of life, one worth working towards and maintaining for everyone’s benefit.
So let's dive in! Jk see rule 3 for relevance.
1. Stand up Straight: Dominance Hierarchies
Like it or not humans are animals and the way we present ourselves give way to our social standings, which ultimately impacts our inner emotional lives and wellbeing in some way. In a perfectly logical world it would not be necessary to discuss such an arbitrary thing as standing up straight, your posture should not determine anything – but it does.
Inevitably, those who stand up straight, shoulders back and head held high are taken more seriously in all walks of life. It implies confidence, knowledge and competence. They are rewarded for their attitude with privileges that lead them to have better jobs, careers, relationships and lives in general. These things instill a greater sense of wellbeing and further their behavior, creating a positive loop.
We can trace this back to evolution and see it in the lobster world (Peterson’s example), generally the bigger looking creature is the dominant one. Why? Well, perhaps they started at the top or were more physically gifted to get there and thus benefited from better food, space, etc ultimately making them even bigger and reinforcing the dominance hierarchy. The world is an unequal place and this exists in humans too. If you don’t stand up straight perhaps its because you have a low self esteem, battered by years of being in lower socioeconomic classes, having worse education, worse nutrition and an overall worse life. But you are not a lobster. You do not have to take what the world has given you and accept your place at the bottom, you can make the conscious choice to stand up straight.
I’ve tested this out a few times in this last year in South America, in different social scenarios. Walk in, stand up straight talk to a group of people – it works well, however, when my undergrad US education comes out sometimes their reaction is a bit different, a bit less positive. Intimidating is a word that has been used more than once. I didn’t like it, I felt like it was similar to arrogant, something I strive not to be. In response, I changed my behavior: head down, eyes down, don’t talk to much, smile a lot, really try to be agreeable. If you’re trying to make the least noise possible and not upset anybody it works. However, it doesn’t feel great. It feels like I’m compromising myself to be better liked and the benefits it gives in the long term appeared fairly slim. Just like lobsters, people are attracted to those who give off a confident vibe, intimidating or not when I walked in standing up tall people were more likely to remember me, and those who did choose to talk to me again often became friends. Sure, sometimes none of them became friends but at least with a straighter posture and more confident attitude I had a shot at making a real connection, verses without it no one really remembered me for better or worse and I had no shot at forming a new relationship.
Life lessons from South America: Being seen and assertive are not bad things, neither is having confidence. It’s okay the entire world doesn’t like you, many people in the world would probably like you more if you slumped down and did whatever they told you. This isn’t about agreeableness, it’s about trying to get in on that positive loop to get the treatment and environmental conditions you deserve.
It’s a simple act but it’ll make a big difference in the way you feel in the world and the way the world feels about you. Try it out, even if it’s just for a week.
2. Treat Yourself like someone you’re responsible for caring for
Said a lot but do you actually do it? For example, whose responsible for your health, you or your PCP. Keep reading for my version of the answer.
We often treat ourselves as second rate players in our own life. Which – though understandable in some ways – ultimately has deleterious consequences. It’s our lives, we should be the stars and if we’re not then that’s an issue.
Some believe that pediatrics is the most impactful field in medicine because when you tell a child to eat better, exercise more and sleep more the whole household ends up doing it. Why? Not because the doctor hasn’t given the same advice to the mother and father on their own accord, but rather because when the parents hear their beloved child is in danger they take it upon themselves to help their child. It’s their responsibility if their child is unhealthy, so they must take action to fix it. Often times we lack that sense of responsibility to ourselves.
Treat yourself like you matter. Don’t like it when you binge eat, don’t do it. Don’t like it when you do nothing all day but watch TV, don’t do it.
As a healthcare worker, I’ve seen that many patients look towards doctors or nurses to take responsibility of their health. While healthcare workers can and should do their best to improve your wellbeing, but at the end of the day its up to you to exercise, sleep, control stress levels and eat well. All of these things are in your ball park, and are far more beneficial then going to a doctor and getting a pill or getting cut open – and that’s coming from a future doctor. If everyone practiced preventative care then I might be out of a job in 20 years and that would be an excellent problem to have.
Treat your body and mind with the love, care and respect you would give to the person you love most in the world – because that should be yourself!
3. Compare Yourself to who you were Yesterday
As you may know I think that life is a game, but that’s probably oversimplifying it. Life is many games played in many different arenas. Inevitably, you will not and cannot win at all these different games, there will be someone who is better and worse than you in almost all if not all of your characteristics. Thus, comparing yourself to others – regardless of who or for what is never a good move.
I recently had a conversation to a friend about efficiency, she said “I characterize efficiency in terms of if I say I’m inefficient it’s in my own measurements, it’s not comparing how fast you can do this job to how fast I can do it.” It helped her push her limits and work better each day and seemed to be a much healthier way of thinking about work.
Another example would be in swimming: my coach always obsessed over beating our own best times for a certain event. This wasn’t because he didn’t know the other times of the competitors – he could have easily told me, okay the #1 seed in your category swims a 100-yard freestyle in 56 seconds, train to beat that. But he didn’t, he said okay your best time is a 59, try to get lower. This sort of mentality gave me constant motivation, a sense of control and fulfillment even if I lost the race. The control thing was big, win or lose I always felt like I could improve because the only enemy I had was myself.
Thus, if you think about who you were last year and think “oh wow what a different human being” then high five because you are growing as a person. Each year I strive to become somewhat more aware of myself and the world around you, that’s how I know it's been a good year. Especially if it's early in life, I’ve found the curve for learning to be pretty exponential in the past 9 years.
Thanks coach, and yes this is my happy face. PC 2012.
The Outside World
4. Make friends with those who want What’s best for You
“You should always help someone in need” true or false? False. You just can’t. As much as I want to be some sort of all giving being who has an endless potential of emotional support, it’s simply not feasible. You can give a lot to this world but only if you’re well taken care of, if you burn yourself out young then you’ll probably help less people and accomplish less in the world than if you had taken care of yourself in all aspects including emotionally. This involves having good friends. Friends is a lose term, acquaintances is probably a more apt term for what people mean when they say “friend” now but for the sake of this rule let’s define friend as someone who you choose to spend your time with, are emotionally attached too and would probably wreck you if they died. The lesson here is when it comes to defining your true friends don’t choose those who you feel you can fix or who need you, rather be friends with people who actually want what’s best for you. But what does that even mean?
“To want other people to grow. To want other people to have all the good things that you have. And to spare them of all the bad things if you can. That is goodness.” - Sci fi book I read when I was a teenager
That’s one of my favorite quotes, think about it and then think about how many people you really want that for. It’s hard to want that for people, I’ll be the first to admit. It’s hard when you think they have easier lives or more privilege, to want them to actually keep growing, to want them to not experience the bad things you experienced. The thought “well I had to go through that, why shouldn’t they” might arise. The explanation is because you are good. Hopefully you remember the difficulties that you passed, the hardship they caused you and that motivates you to help others avoid that in the future.
An example I struggle with more than I’d like to admit is my half-sisters. They’re 5 and 7 and a product of my father’s second marriage, to a woman whose role was more than questionable in the divorce. Before my father had to work a lot, before my parents didn’t know much about the USA, before we didn’t have money, before my schools had a lot of racism. Now, my father always has 1-2 hours to spend with his kids, we have a nice house, 3 nice cars and my principals/teachers remember me and my last name. I write letters to my schools at the start of each school year to ensure that my sisters are treated with the respect that all human beings deserve. Sometimes my mind flashes back and wonders what it would be like if I lived their life today, how much better it would be, how much easier. But that’s not productive thinking at all, it does nothing and I have feeling it can lead to resentment if it isn’t logically replaced with the thought that it was worth it to ensure that not only my sisters/cousins/ fellow latinxs live a better life but also in my own self growth and the creation of who I am. Who would I be without those experiences? We’ll never know but I’d like to think they were positive drivers for growth.
It’s easier to be my definition of good, when I think of my former VPs in Refresh Bolivia and now upcoming Executive Directors. The first time I was asked to write a letter of recommendation I thought seriously, if I wanted them to succeed and why. I did, but not because I want everyone to succeed – because I don’t, there’s too much power in the world and I don’t trust that everyone has the necessary experience/skills/moral/potential to use it to improve our world. But for my VPs – one of which is my best friend – I actually wish the best for them, that all their hopes and dreams come true even if they entail being better than me in a competition. I want him to succeed. Truly and deeply. Because the world needs more good people and I think they’re some of them.
Maybe you think you’re a good person and maybe you don’t, regardless surround yourself with people who do see your goodness (I’m sure some of it does exist), who want to bring it out, who want you to actually succeed. Easier said than done, I know. Start by thinking about how many of your friends you would actually be happy for if they beat you for a promotion in your field, and if they would be happy for you if the reserve were to come true. To me identifying why you feel that way is the start of true goodness, goodness that can be used to better your relationships and ultimately your life.
These goons could rule the world and I'd sleep well at night, I wish the best for them every day. Even if they're idea of a good graduation gift was a larger than life tapestry of this picture (unclear what one does with that).
5. Tell the truth or at least don’t lie
This one is an easy one at the surface, let’s delve deeper to see why we lie. We’ll discuss this under the assumption that we lie to protect ourselves, evolutionarily this is the reason we engage in this. With this said, we are putting aside the fact that some people lie for the thrill of it, to test their limits or to see how gullible people are.
We want to make ourselves look better
We are afraid of appearing incompetent
We are not confident with our true selves and abilities
We want the lie to be true aka that’s how much the lie matters
Feelings of control
It’s a snowball lie
All of these reasons are not ideal, however for 1 and 2 what’s the big deal? Everyone is scared and we’re just protecting ourselves and our status by engaging in lying. Go to 6 to see why it matters. Lies snowball, first it’s one and then it’s 100. Perhaps you can survive in this world of lies, remembering them, internalizing them and acting them out when needed. If you can congratulations you have mastered your own universe entirely by rejecting the real one in front of you and creating a new one aka #5. However, in terms of wellness goes living in a lie filled world isn’t meaningful or fulfilling. This points back to #3 and #5 – confidence and control. Real confidence is found within, and you probably know how hollow a lie feels, regardless of how much you want it to be true aka #4. Further, in this world you’ll have some limitations that you don’t want the world to see, because you feel like you can’t control them, and that’s really okay. It’s a human thing, we can’t control everything and in fact we can control very little. So if you find yourself lying to feel in control then how about telling the truth, that’s something you can control too and will let you build a real world with your real self and real skillset in it.
If you have to lie 20 times a day to maintain your $2 million a year salary then your quality of life might be less than someone who doesn’t lie and only makes $200,000 a year. That person is defining their world honestly, their paycheck is based out of their merits, they feel they deserve it and they enjoy it more.
This uniquely human feature of enjoying something more because we “deserve” it applies to lying and its consequences.
Psychopaths often lack this moral sensibility to lying, they limited negative emotions when they lie as long as they reach their goal. Interestingly, close to one third of the world top CEOs have psychopathic traits and also control as much money in the world that the bottom half have collectively. You can decide if you have the desire or capability to engage in these psychopathic tendencies, but fair warning the ride will probably not be a smooth one.
6. Assume the Person your talking to has something to teach you
When I was younger I was pretty afraid to talk to people, scared that they would feel like I was bothering them or that I wasn’t smart enough to keep up with their conversation, so I stayed away generally listening to conversation topics for a while, figuring out what they were really saying and then engaging in conversation. Eventually I discovered that people like talking about specific fields that they hold expertise in. To engage them better I would always ask about those topics, at first it started out because I knew it was an effective way of making conversation and I saw it made them happy. But now, I’ve realized that you can learn so much from people about so many different topics. Learning can happen every day at every moment, and if it does well then that’s been a pretty productive and privileged day.
If you honestly don’t care about anyone else’s perspectives, interests or views on the world then I’d urge you to obviously not practice this one. But if you are interested in finding out about another person’s interests/thought processes/views then approach every conversation like this – what can they teach me and what can I give back to them.
For me, probably the best thing to do in this world is learn, gain new experiences and make the world a better place, so this approach comes in strong to help the first two. Each person is a whole world, so why not try to learn something from them? It’ll be interesting to listen to and make them feel good, double win.
7. Don’t be Afraid of the Vitamin D Light
If you live in the cold north of the world then you probably know of the existence of these vitamin D lights, you sit in front of them for 10-15 minutes and soak up the vitamin D that your skin so desperately needs and that the 20 below, frozen environment isn’t giving to you.
Once I had a conversation with a group of people about why everyone doesn’t have this light and they responded with something like “oh I don’t need that light I am totally fine without it, winter doesn’t weaken me.” First off, who said anything about being weak? Secondly, I definitely wasn’t meant to live in a place where it gets dark at 3:30pm so it’s only natural that the body isn’t pleased with it either (lack of vitamin D gives way to fatigue, bone/back pain, getting sick often, among other things). Lastly, why would you pass up an extra shot to feel a bit better for the rest of your day? It costs you nothing to study in front of that lamp for 15 minutes and it gives you wellness.
This principle can be applied to many things in life – if something costs you little to no time/effort and has a chance at improving your wellbeing (mental, physical or emotional) you should do it. If a puppy passes by you on your walk from school and you like puppies then pet it.
Always be kind to yourself and open to the small things that make life a bit better.
After we painted our first RB logo in 2016 I set aside 5 minutes to quietly cry tears of joy because the emotion of the moment was so good to feel. Sometimes it's nice to just let yourself experience everything life has to offer even if its crying in front of 10 of your confused volunteers over something so small as painting a logo.
Loved Ones
8. Don’t let your friends do things that make you dislike them... because then you won't like them anymore
These rules were written by Peterson originally for children but I think it can be applied to any loved one you have. If you have a positive relationship with someone hopefully you are able to engage in positive criticism for their and your sake.
When I was young and insecure once I asked my father if he thought I was pretty he replied “you’re like a 6 or a 7” I cried and told him that, that was an awful thing to say because as a father I figured he would always be overly nice. If he said I was a 6 then I was probably like a 3. He replied that he would never lie, he was trying his best to tell me the truth and he would always do that. He felt it was better that I hear the truth from my father – someone who wanted me to grow – than from my peers whose intentions were more unclear. In some sense he was trying to help me embrace reality and embrace my imperfections. This sort of brutal honesty can sting for a long while if not done correctly but can lead to positive self growth and awareness if engaged properly with clear intentions.
This idea can be applied to any criticisms that your friends have self doubts on. If a friend is being overly needy, then you should tell them. Communication up front is better because if you eventually grow to dislike them because of this feature and you have never told them, then you might simply drop them as a friend. They’ll be left wondering what happened and experience fairly little self growth. Perhaps you do need to drop them as a friend but if you ever really cared about them you would tell them why. In general, if your loved ones are doing something that makes you – a person who deeply cares about them – dislike them, then they’re probably not doing so well with the rest of the world, so you are helping not hurting them when you tell them the truth.
But if they don’t listen to you then….
9. Be Precise in your speech
When something is bothering you, take time to figure out what it is and then communicate it clearly if there is another party who can take action to help you. This requires five steps:
Understanding your own internal needs
Understanding how/ why they are not being met
Having a relationship based on clear communication and trust
Effectively communicating your needs to the other party
Figuring out a solution together, an action plan
Many of us get held up in step #1, so take time to figure yourself out. Check out some of my previous posts for this. Once you get to step 5 not only will you be on a path to a better you but you will also have strengthened your relationship. Disclaimer: this is not as smooth as it sounds here, the first conversation can go haywire pretty easily, so it’s always important to emphasize that both parties’ objectives are to strengthen the relationship and both parties are interested in working together to do so. It’s important to not come off as attacking the other person or blaming them aka “I feel sad because you are scum” that’s not specific and doesn’t help anybody – including yourself.
If they’re still not listening then ….
10. Let people Live their Own Life
If people choose to engage in negative actions after they adequately know the risks/consequences, especially children who are constantly pushing their limits to get to know their surroundings, just let them. Without suffering, there is no bliss - okay maybe that was too far.
But really, you’re the captain of your own ship and that’s it. Don’t try to command someone else’s because it’s exhausting and not helpful to them. Life inevitably has suffering and hardship, if you try to protect someone from it they'll just turn into blobs you are incapable of dealing with life and suck away all your energy and never realize their true potential. Not wise. has to learn and figure out their own way in the world.If your returns seems to be minimal and/or unwelcome seriously re-evaluate why you are doing something.
Ex 1. You are mentoring an inner city kid who doesn’t value education, as a nerd you really try to push this one him. You are met with little warmth. The kid doesn’t like talking to you and rarely engages in conversation. You’ve tried every angle you know and just don’t know what else to do. You really think you can change this kid’s life for the better if he starts trying in school though.
Ex 2. You want your bum sister to get a job. Sure she married a rich doctor so she doesn’t have to work but you feel like she’s wasting her life away, she was always smarter than you in school and more motivated. Society is missing out because she’s not making a positive contribution. Plus you’re scared there’s something wrong with her. After a year of pushing her to apply to jobs and trying to figure out what’s wrong you have succeeded in aggravating her and pushing her away. Now what?
Both cases are different, in the first it’s clear this kid has pretty limited chances at success so perhaps being there constantly is a good use of your time. However, with your sister who has everything in the world including a loving husband, then maybe you can be more hands off. Or maybe not. It depends on your value of family and how you want to spend your time. In both cases the argument can be made that you can stop trying with them and use your time to do better, more impactful things. It can also be made that if you do nothing, no one will, they you are abandoning them.
Here’s the difference – the inner city kid has no example, no idea of the world, he might not even believe you and he is a kid. Versus your sister has been to the same education as you (let’s assume college grad), has wealth, has time and is a grown woman. If it was my life – and it kind of is – I would spend my time trying to get through to the inner city child. Not because I love my sister any less but because she’s grown and capable of making her own decisions, she has all the opportunities, resources, support and knowledge out there. And the inner city kid doesn’t. I would however, reduce my time trying to get through to him especially if I think I can make a bigger impact somewhere else. Who knows maybe he’ll even miss you (surprise he did).
As the saying goes, if you love someone let them go – to live their own life, make their own mistakes, as long as you tried to help them and are there for them in times of need then that’s all we can really do.
11. Always take calls from your crazy aunt
This example came from Malcom Gladwell’s podcast and I really enjoyed it, so here it is with a bit of modification and some of my own interpretation.
Let’s pretend you are big in the finance business, you trade money like no other and make millions for it. You live in a beautiful penthouse apartment in NYC with a gold chandelier. You also have an aunt who knows that you “do something with money” who lives in Australia. She goes on vacation once a week and always calls you to check when is the best time to exchange her currency.
You try to explain that you work with millions of dollars, that you just do predictive models, that her $5,000 exchange can be done on almost any day and it will make no sizeable difference. But she doesn’t care. She wants to know when to change it. You go through some semi-logical thought process and decide to tell her to just do it next Tuesday. She’s ecstatic and you didn’t lie. If she was trading 5 million dollars next Tuesday would give her an extra $5, big win.
Staring at your gold chandelier, crystals dancing in the light you wonder why you keep taking her calls. After all you told your secretary to not pick up the line if the CEO of Nike called after 8pm. Oh right because you are a human being, that has social ties to his family, that remembers when you were 5 years old she would take you to see koalas and that understands in some weird way it’s nice to be able to help your family in this way.
Never get to big to cut out your family. In fancy universities its hard to maintain this contact with your family sometimes, if you have the choice between listening to the latest nobel prize of medicine winner and calling your father who’ll ask you what to take for his back pain, it can seem like a hard one. So here’s a suggestion: try not to put yourself in that situation. Set aside time to actually talk to your family each day, make a routine or at the very least have some downtime set aside where you can respond to their calls.
Because one more time, the world’s longest happiness study shows that relationships are what make a quality life not professional success. Make sure you prioritize them for your sake at the very least and perhaps to get one step closer to being a better human being.
Here's me and my dad, we try to call every other day at least when I'm in school. He tells me about his life and I tell him about mine, neither understanding completely but both trying to be there as best we can. Made a huge difference in my semester and let me feel more supported than ever.
Those are my rules for life. While they may sound like common sense, try following them for even 1 day and you’ll see how hard it is and all the areas we have to grow as human beings.
Message or email any questions. I hope you’ve had an interesting time reading and maybe even reflected a little.
Thanks for the read!
- Claudia