“The better ambitions have to do with the development of character and ability, rather than status and power.” – Jordan Peterson
A little while ago, I was catching up with an old friend when she brought up the topic of Jordan Peterson:
“Oh, he’s terrible. I don’t like him at all.”
Interesting, I thought.
I’m not a JP super-fan, but I don’t dislike him either.
And honestly, I’m not sure what there is to dislike.
I read his first book and listened to a handful of his podcast episodes, and all I’ve ever heard him say is variations of:
Clean your room. Work hard. Stand for something.
Not revolutionary, but definitely not offensive.
The worst thing I can say about him is that he interrupts people during podcasts (gasp!), could probably use some emotional healing (who couldn’t), and sometimes talks about spirituality without having direct experience of it (which is true of like 95% of the people that talk about spirituality, so big whoop).
As far as public figures go, dude seems pretty vanilla to me.
So I asked:
“What don’t you like about him? Have you read any of his books, or watched any of his videos?”
She replied:
“Well, no… But [other friend] said he’s a really bad guy.”
Face. Palm.
I dug a little deeper, and it turns out [other friend] hasn’t actually read or watched his stuff, either.
She heard about him from someone else, who heard it from someone else, who heard it from someone else, who probably had a really messy room.
Clearly, the problem isn’t with Jordan Peterson:
It’s with lazy, second-hand thinking.
Which is a shame, because JP’s got some useful stuff that would probably be helpful for those who are too busy hating on him to work on themselves.
Here’s the lesson:
If we’re not thinking for ourselves, we’re not actually thinking — we’re just adopting the thoughts of others.
And, as a bonus:
Our emotional triggers are clues to our next level of development.
We only get triggered by people (ie. Jordan Peterson) that show us a part of ourselves we don’t like.
In other words, the trigger is a defense mechanism.
So the practitioner move is to use that trigger to shine light on whatever part of you has been left in the shadows.
That way, even if you don’t like Jordan Peterson (or whoever), you can still use him as a springboard to higher levels of development.
Sounds like the more productive strategy to me.
Alright, that’s all for now.
We’re wrapping up our Costa Rica retreat today, and the group is shining.
Days like this remind me why I do this work 🙂
Have an awesome one over there and we’ll chat more tomorrow.
– T
