Stand up straight with your shoulders back
I started reading 12 Rules for Life some time ago but I stopped because I wasn’t getting it. I think at the time, my attention was divided. So I picked it up again at the beginning of November. I read Rule 1 all over again, and I got it. I didn’t struggle to understand.
I’m still reading the book. Currently on Rule 7. But I’ll just talk about Rule 1.
Here’s my key takeaway from Rule 1:
How you portray and treat yourself will determine how others will treat you.
If people realise you cannot defend or stand up for yourself, they’re going to give you that kind of treatment. They’re going to treat you just as they see you — weak, defenseless, etc. And this usually doesn’t end well. It’s an endless cycle of one bad treatment to the other. The opposite is also true for this.
While reading Rule 1, I said to myself “Jordan was right”. He was right when he said,
“If you say no, early in the cycle of oppression, and you mean what you say (which means you state your refusal in no uncertain terms and stand behind it) then the scope of oppression on the part of the oppressor will remain properly bounded and limited.”
I realised that the moment you stand up for yourself, people will begin to treat you as someone they can’t oppress or bully. They will respect you. They will become limited because they know you can fight back, speak your mind, and won’t just kowtow to their oppression.
This thing about Lobsters
I’m on the first page of Rule 1, and after the main heading, I read “LOBSTERS — AND TERRITORY”. I already didn’t know what standing up straight with your shoulders back meant, and to top it all, I had to wonder why Jordan Peterson was going to talk about lobsters.
I wouldn’t want to go into the science of Rule 1: Stand up straight with your shoulders back. But Jordan Peterson explained how lobsters and humans are alike; how the nervous systems of lobsters teach us about standing up straight. Find below excerpts from pages 30 and 37 explaining this:
5 of my Highlights from Rule 1:
- Sometimes people are bullied because they can’t fight back
- If you say no, early in the cycle of oppression, and you mean what you say (which means you state your refusal in no uncertain terms and stand behind it) then the scope of oppression on the part of the oppressor will remain properly bounded and limited
- Circumstances change, and so can you
- Standing up straight with your shoulders back is not something that is only physical, because you’re not only a body. You’re a spirit, so to speak — a psyche — as well. Standing up physically also implies and invokes and demands standing up metaphysically
- Attend carefully to your posture. Quit drooping and hunching around. Speak your mind. Put your desires forward, as if you had a right to them — at least the same right as others
Jordan B. Peterson’s 12 Rules for Life: An Antidote to Chaos is an extremely good book, and I’ll definitely recommend it. I admire how he incorporates several ideas and concepts from different fields in his work.
This article was originally published on my blog on Thursday, 8th December 2022.
