Pursue The Ideal And Be A Beacon To The World Why do people n | Dr. Jordan B. Peterson Official Telegram Channel

Pursue The Ideal And Be A Beacon To The World

Why do people not look up and move ahead? The answer is, you start formulating an ideal, you formulate a judge, and it is pretty easy to feel intimidated in the face of your own ideal. That is what happens to Cain versus Abel, for example. It is really easy to destroy the ideal instead of trying to pursue it because then you get rid of the judge. But it is way better. Lower the damn judge if it is too much. If your current ambition is crushing you, then maybe you are playing the tyrant to yourself and you should tamp down your ambitions, not get rid of them by any stretch of the imagination, but at least put them more reasonably within your grasp. You do not have to leap from point one to point 50 in one leap. You can do it incrementally.

I really like this idea. I think it is a profound idea—the process of recapitulating yourself continually. It is a Phoenix-like process. You are shedding all those elements of you that are no longer worthy of the pursuits that you are valuing. The idea is that as you do, you shape yourself ever more precisely into something that can withstand the tragedy of life and that can act as a beacon to the world. That is the right way of thinking about it—maybe first to your friends and then to your family.