What Jordan Peterson Can Teach Us About the Meaning of Life

On Life and Business
With Jake Erickson
April 9, 2023

According to Jordan Peterson:

"The purpose of life is to find a mode of being that's so meaningful that the fact that life's suffering itself is no longer relevant."

Luckily, finding this "mode" anyone can do.

You just have to know where to start.

So here are the first 3 steps you can take to get clear on your life.

1. First, VOLUNTARILY accept that life IS suffering and MAKE the decision.

Life is the ultimate challenge.

There is no reason to do anything. It is a decision. And so, instead of pondering the meaning of life — you have 3 options.

You're either going to give in, give up, or give it EVERYTHING you absolutely got.

Since life is a magnificent game — why not give it your all?

Do you really have anything better to do? So why not pick the best thing possible to do?

How you do anything is how you do everything.

2. Clear your conscience.

Once you clear your conscience, you've justified your existence.

It is better to clear your conscience than to search for happiness. Why is that? Because we suffer from imagined troubles throughout our lives. It comes from guilt and shame from the sheer knowledge that:

a) You’re either not taking care of yourself

b) You’re not living up to your full potential

But how do you clear your conscience?

You do this by starting with the proper attitude towards yourself.

• You’re worthy of care

• You’re worthy of respect

• And there is something to you that is valuable enough to be developed

Accept that you don't know what you don't know. But despite all your flaws and inefficiencies — it's still worth having you around, and it'd be okay if things were better for you.

3. Establish your aim.

Have a note where you can continuously add where you want to be AND where you don't want to be 3-5 years from now.

This will help your reticular activating system make better decisions on what stability it needs to sacrifice in the present to gain in the future.

The best way to go about this is to envision what you want in the future and brainstorm the problems you’d need to solve on the way to that vision.

If you need help with this process, I highly recommend Jordan Peterson’s self-authoring course.

It goes through these steps, helping you become more productive, persistent, and engaged in life.

We all need clarity. Sometimes we need it now more than ever.

That is all for this week.

Thanks for reading! 🙂 

-Jake