E113: Jordan Peterson: How To Become The Person Youve Always Wanted To Be

What's one thing I'm doing wrong that I know I'm doing wrong that I could fix that I would fix. It's like, you meditate on that, you'll get an answer—and it won't be one you want, but it'll be the necessary one.

I believe that truth will save the world. I believe that. So, you speak truthfully, and you watch what happens, and you take your consequences. And maybe you hope and have some faith that, in the final analysis, things will work out in your favor. Perhaps they will, and perhaps they won't. But that's faith, eh? That's faith. Faith isn't believing in things you regard as ridiculous, sacrificing your intellect; it's a decision. Will truth, beauty, and love save the world. Well, you can find out.

I believe that we will conclude that our response to the pandemic caused more death and misery than the pandemic itself.

And with regards to, let's say, the issue of child vaccination: Children have a unbelievably tiny chance of dying from COVID. I don't think there's any scientific justification for immunizing children under 12.

Imagine you're in your messy bedroom, and you're sitting on the edge of the bed, trying to have an honest dialogue with yourself, and the little voice says 'You know, it's pretty disgusting in here.' And you think, 'Well, I'm way above such trivial niceties as organizing my room ... Well, that's pride; that's arrogance. If you're above organizing what's actually yours, how in the world are you ever going to organize anything else?

We're built to walk uphill. And when you reach the pinnacle of the hill, you want to stop and appreciate the vision, but the next thing you want is a higher hill in the distance ... It's from the uphill climb that we derive our value.

I'm not convinced that the evidence that masks work is scientifically credible. It's certainly at least doubtful—and that's just masks.

I read a paper the other day suggesting that to prevent the transmission of one case of COVID, you have to lockdown a thousand people. Like, how is that justifiable?

You start making those micro improvements, like real micro improvements, real on the ground actual micro improvements to things you know that are wrong, you'll improve unbelievably rapidly.

The way you pay for your privileges is with your virtue ... You have these opportunities and this existential guilt, and the way you expiate that and atone is by doing your best to live the best possible life you can manage—to speak the truth, to treat people with respect, to abide by the principles of the dignity of the individual. and to put your house in order. And that's how you pay for your unearned privilege.

If you want to help someone, the best way to help someone is not to give them advice but to listen to them.

If you aren't truthful—and that means, unfortunately, especially at the beginning when you start to be truthful, it means deeply coming to terms with your inadequacies in humility; it's very painful. Without that, you don't have the adventure of your life; you have the rule that you've acquiesced to, and that'll take all the meaning out of your life.

We'll see with regard to the pandemic, because, although, in some sense, it is, in some ways, over, our reaction to it is by no means over. And part of the reason that we overreacted—I would say, so precipitously to it—is that we were unprepared for such things in our naivety. And then we rushed to imitate a totalitarian society in the immediate aftermath of the pandemic emergence.

When you're doubtful, say, you're trapped, you ask yourself, 'Well, why am I trapped?' That's a hard question, right? Because some of it's your own inadequacy, a lot of it. And all of the part of it that you can deal with is your own inadequacy.

50% of Democrats in the United States believe you have a 50% chance of being hospitalized with COVID and 25% of Republicans believe the same thing.

I've had conversations with people advising at the highest level of government, particularly in Canada, who have told me flat-out—and they're very reliable sources—that none of the COVID policy for the last year was driven by reliance on science; it's all opinion poll.

Politics is not public; that's medicine. Politics is the art of analyzing the entire situation and charting a course forward, all things considered. And for politicians to trot out the experts and say 'follow the science' just means that they've abdicated their own responsibilities, and I think it's appalling.

I get up, and I do a series of exercises that my wife taught me that are based in the Kundalini yoga tradition. That's real helpful. Flexibility and breathing exercises. That reduces my anxiety during the day, I would say, about 25%.

People complain about their phones, but they carry them with them everywhere they go ... It's not a phone ... It's so insanely powerful that we don't know what to do with it, and it might even wreck everything ... Twitter itself could bring civilization to a halt. We don't know how to manage the unintended consequences of our technological prowess.

That's why you shouldn't lie; you're warping the mechanism that orients you in the world. Do you really want to do that? This is a brutal world, man.

If you ask people questions. and you really listen, they will untangle themselves.