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Chaos
“Being” refers to reality. As Peterson uses it, the term refers especially to the burden and joy of human existence. Being inevitably involves suffering, but the key to not becoming overwhelmed by suffering, Peterson believes, is to find the courage to believe that life’s suffering is outweighed by its goodness. Willingness to shoulder the burden of Being—to strive to improve Being both for oneself and for others, instead of shrinking from the responsibility and choosing resentment, bitterness, or revenge instead—is foundational to Peterson’s 12 rules for life.
Being Quotes in 12 Rules for Life
The 12 Rules for Life quotes below are all either spoken by Being or refer to Being. For each quote, you can also see the other terms and themes related to it (each theme is indicated by its own dot and icon, like this one:
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Overture
Quotes
During this time, I came to a more complete, personal realization of what the great stories of the past continually insist upon: the centre is occupied by the individual. The centre is marked by the cross, as X marks the spot. Existence at that cross is suffering and transformation—and that fact, above all, needs to be voluntarily accepted. It is possible to transcend slavish adherence to the group and its doctrines and, simultaneously, to avoid the pitfalls of its opposite extreme, nihilism. It is possible, instead, to find sufficient meaning in individual consciousness and experience.
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Rule 1
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But 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. Standing up means voluntarily accepting the burden of Being. Your nervous system responds in an entirely different manner when you face the demands of life voluntarily. You respond to a challenge, instead of bracing for a catastrophe.
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Rule 2
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Humanity, in toto, and those who compose it […] deserve some sympathy for the appalling burden under which the human individual genuinely staggers; some sympathy for subjugation to mortal vulnerability, tyranny of the state, and the depredations of nature. It is an existential situation that no mere animal encounters or endures […] It is this sympathy that should be the proper medicament for self-conscious self-contempt, which has its justification, but is only half the full and proper story.
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Rule 6
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The ancient Jews always blamed themselves when things fell apart. They acted as if God’s goodness—the goodness of reality—was axiomatic, and took responsibility for their own failure. That’s insanely responsible. But the alternative is to judge reality as insufficient, to criticize Being itself, and to sink into resentment and the desire for revenge.
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Rule 7
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You may find that if you attend to these moral obligations, once you have placed “make the world better” at the top of your value hierarchy, you experience ever-deepening meaning. It’s not bliss. It’s not happiness. It is something more like atonement for the criminal fact of your fractured and damaged Being. […] It’s adoption of the responsibility for being a potential denizen of Hell. It is willingness to serve as an angel of Paradise.
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Rule 12
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If you pay careful attention, even on a bad day, you may be fortunate enough to be confronted with small opportunities of just that sort […] And maybe when you are going for a walk and your head is spinning a cat will show up and if you pay attention to it then you will get a reminder for just fifteen seconds that the wonder of Being might make up for the ineradicable suffering that accompanies it.
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Get the entire 12 Rules for Life LitChart as a printable PDF.
Being Term Timeline in 12 Rules for Life
The timeline below shows where the term Being appears in 12 Rules for Life. The colored dots and icons indicate which themes are associated with that appearance.
Overture
...lack positive value. They lack anything “to set against the suffering that is intrinsic to Being.” Without positive value in life, the pain of existence becomes overwhelming, leading to hopelessness and...
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...months to understand this dream. He believes the dream placed him at the center of “Being” itself, and he couldn’t escape. As he reflected on this, he realized more completely that...
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...development of the individual, and […] the willingness of everyone to shoulder the burden of Being and to take the heroic path.” Each person must assume as much of that responsibility...
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Rule 1: Stand up straight with your shoulders back
...just bodies. Standing up straight also “demands standing up metaphysically” and “accepting the burden of Being.” When a person chooses to meet life’s demands, the nervous system reacts differently—“you respond to...
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...helps you be less anxious, a better communicator, and better equipped to embrace and improve Being—even strengthening those around you when you and they are tempted to despair. In this way,...
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Rule 2: Treat yourself like someone you are responsible for helping
...survival than about what would be regarded as objective truth today. Back then, reality, or Being, “was understood as a place of action, not a place of things.” It was concerned...
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...He gives them the ability to do the same thing. Genesis 1 teaches that this Being God has created is good—humanity is good, even when that goodness is disrupted by humanity’s...
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...found within Genesis 1: “to embody the Image of God—to speak out of chaos the Being that is Good,” out of free choice. He adds that if we want to take...
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...fellow human beings. He finds that people are so weighed down by the burden of Being that it’s remarkable they ever look beyond their own troubles. People deserve sympathy for living...
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Rule 4: Compare yourself to who you were yesterday, not to who someone else is today
At this point, maybe you start to aim at the “Improvement of Being” more generally. In that light, maybe you rethink your reaction to the Old Testament God—even...
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Rule 6: Set your house in perfect order before you criticize the world
...Most people don’t go to the extreme of a mass shooter, but many people question Being itself when they encounter injustice or tragedy. Life is hard for everyone, and while sometimes...
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...can avoid being outraged at it. There’s something logical about trying to take revenge on Being itself.
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Rule 7: Pursue what is meaningful (not what is expedient)
...bread. But Christ refuses to take the expedient path, aiming at a better way of Being instead—one that would ultimately solve the problem of hunger altogether. Through the rest of the...
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...on short-term gains. Its opposite is meaning. If someone’s value structure is aimed at making Being better, then meaning is revealed which will be “the antidote for chaos and suffering,” and...
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Rule 8: Tell the truth—or, at least, don’t lie
Brilliant people tend to be prideful and disregard error—a “mode of Being” that Peterson follows Søren Kierkegaard in calling “inauthentic.” An inauthentic person keeps acting in ways...
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...social totalitarianism.” In essence, these and other thinkers concluded that “lies warp the structure of Being.” Lies corrupt both individuals and the state, and these forms of corruption are mutually reinforcing.
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...be learned, and most of all, that it’s not necessary for an individual to confront Being.
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...possibility of a person changing, and it doesn’t challenge a person to take responsibility for Being.
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Living according to the truth means accepting and dealing with conflict—that is part of Being. As you do that, you’ll gradually mature and become more responsible and wiser in your...
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...Eventually, you’ll believe your own lies, and when you crash into stubborn reality, you’ll blame Being for it instead of yourself. You’ll become bitter and vengeful. On the other hand, the...
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Rule 10: Be precise in your speech
...face the pain of it. But that doesn’t work, because you’ll still feel disappointed in Being. Sorting through the mess of the past, present, and future might nearly kill you, but...
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Rule 11: Do not bother children when they are skateboarding
...by Buddhism, he came to believe that he—and others—were ethically obligated to negate their own Being.
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Rule 12: Pet a cat when you encounter one on the street
...grieving client, the only thing he could share was “the tight interlinking between vulnerability and Being.” He also told her an old Jewish story about how an omnipotent Being lacks only...
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Given that “being of any reasonable sort appears to require limitation”—that “Being requires Becoming”—what about the suffering that limits cause? It seems unbearable. But if we conclude...
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...agonizing pain. Instead, you can make a courageous choice to “presume the primary goodness of Being” and concentrate on the day at hand.
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...cats are different. Cats interact with people on their own terms. Peterson sees them as “Being, in an almost pure form.” You never know what’s going to happen when you encounter...
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Coda
...muck, as per Rule 3), and what to do with the world (live as though Being is more valuable than Non-Being)—the essence of Rule 1.
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...say to a faithless brother? The King of the Damned is a poor judge of Being.” By this, he refers to Rule 6—that you must first fix yourself before seeking to...
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