I’ve been watching a large number of YouTube videos by Canadian Professor of Psychology Dr. Jordan Peterson over the past several months. Bite-sized Philosophy is an excellent YouTube channel and resource that pulls out interesting clips from his various lectures on different topics.
I watched the following video yesterday, where Jordan Peterson talks about how he learned to “Stop saying things that made [him] weak”.
I’ve been thinking about this topic and realize that it’s applicable in my own life to more than just what I say. Everything I do, say, or think — even how I choose to perceive and interpret situations — can be filtered through this lens:
“Does this ways of acting/thinking/speaking/perceiving make me stronger, or does it make me weaker?”
That is an interesting question to apply to one’s moment-to-moment life.
If you use this question, you may begin to notice how many things you do, think, and say on a regular basis are actually making you weaker and not stronger.
I plan to use this information as a guide to make new decisions on a day-to-day basis to live a life with more strength and less weakness.
Finally, this ties in well with a couple of quotes that have always stuck in my mind:
“Do not pray for easy lives. Pray to be stronger men.” — John F. Kennedy (Quoting Reverend Phillips Brooks, during Remarks at Presidential Prayer Breakfast, February 7 1963)