WRFH/Radio Free Hillsdale 101.7 FM - The Healing Hour: Pursue What is Meaningful, Not What is Expedient

Episode Date: October 16, 2024

Today, Adriana and Erika discuss Rule Seven of Jordan Peterson's Twelve Rules for Life: Pursue What is Meaningful, Not What is Expedient. They discuss what Dr. Peterson means by expedience, practical ways to choose the meaningful path over the expedient one, and the broader implications of the ideas within the chapter.

Hello and welcome to the Healing Hour on Radio Free Hillsdale, where we bring you your weekly dose of healing. I'm your host, Adriana Azarian. And I'm your co-host, Erica Kaiba. And we're here to help you become your happiest, healthiest, fullest self. First of all, I want to give a shout out to all the listeners at home who have been so loyal to us, all the family, friends, and people we don't even know who are listening to us. We appreciate you guys so much. Sending you love from Michigan. Sending much love from Michigan.

Erica, what are we talking about today? We are on Rule 7 of Jordan Peterson's 12 Rules for Life. Can you believe we're halfway done with the 12 rules? It's actually crazy. We're going to be done sometime in November. And then we'll have to think of something else to talk about. We will. Stay tuned.

Before we get into that, though, Erica, we did something healing. We just came back from something very healing. We did. Adriana, what did we do? We went to the gym, and we lifted weights and got swolled together. We did. Friends that lift together stay together. So true.

Wait, I feel like there should be something that rhymes. Friends who wait together. Stay together. That's so cute. I love it. The gym is right. It's in the same building as the radio station. So, yeah, it's pretty convenient.

We should do it more often. We should. And can I just say that I think it's so important to have a period of activity in your day after you've been sitting for a long time? Because I was just stationary in an hour and a half class, which I love very dearly. But I feel like instead of going. straight to just homework after that, it's important to just get up and move your body a little bit. Yeah, because you're also getting out a bit of the stress, you know, because school is necessarily

stressful. Yeah. Yeah. You have to take breaks and walk away from your work and also get the blood flowing. Exactly. Take care of yourself. Take care of yourself, guys. Yes. Consider this your sign to go work out. Take a break. You know, I think of exercise as a form of delayed gratification, Erica. Oh, and that is very topical to what we're discussing today. Very relevant. Because Rule 7 is pursue what is meaningful, not what is expedient. Let's talk about it. So as a brief roadmap for this episode, first half, Adriana and I are going to be talking

about what this means in the practical sense, day to day. What does that look like? Pursuing what's meaningful versus what's expedient. And then the bulk of the chapter is very metaphysical. And we talked a lot in the last episode about nihilism and how we don't really want to go there. But pursuing what is expedient often leads to nihilism. Nileism is a form of expediency versus choosing meaning. But we will get there when we get there.

Indeed. First of all, Adriana, what were your initial reactions to the chapter? Thoughts, comments, concerns? I saw it as an extension of the previous chapter, and we discussed this before. But the previous chapter, he talks about people who see the world and they think that it's all coming after them. and they have a lot of hatred towards the world because they don't have a meaning for any of the suffering in their life. And so then they, you know, act out on it or they just become resentful or they become violent. And this chapter is more like, you know, this is why, this is how you embrace suffering and how you accept it as a part of your day-to-day life and find meaning therein.

See, I used a good word there. They're in. Wonderful. Thank you. Yeah. And I also found that they both put a high emphasis on personal responsibility. in Rule 6, setting your house in perfect order, taking full accountability for your life

before you point fingers at the rest of the world. And then Rule 7 is about examining your choices and making sure you're choosing the meaningful thing. Yeah. So if we actually talk about what that means, Jordan Peterson defines expedience here and elsewhere as the thing that gets you off the hook the fastest, whereas choosing what's meaningful is what's actually good.

So if we think about practical examples of this, telling a lie to save your own. own skin. You might think that, oh, well, one white lie about one thing, you know, that might, that might not be so bad we could tell ourselves, but over time that destroys trust. Or you get comfortable in the lie, and that becomes your character. So those little moments of expediency actually add up. Whereas the meaningful thing would be just to own up to whatever you did. Because then that would tie back to like, you have a moral duty, right? And that is like your meaning.

Like you owe it to either your fellow man or to God to do the right thing. Exactly. Is that, yeah, okay. Yeah, that's pretty much it. I mean, you adopt, if you, this is something that Jordan Peterson talks about a lot. If you just watch clips of his lectures or just speaking, addressing people, he'll talk about how if you're pursuing a meaningful life, every single thing you do matters. Because you've adopted this moral code and like you said, that's the meaning.

So if you deviate from the moral code, it's like you're saying that it doesn't really matter. And of course, I'm not saying be perfect because, I mean, we all try for that, but of course, we all deviate. Only I can do it, right? Only Adriana can, has really achieved perfection. That's why I have a radio show. That's why she has a radio show. Anyhow, I'm not perfect. Anyone who knows me knows this.

Anyone who knows that I'm human knows this. You're listening to Radio Free Hillsdale 101.1.1.7 FM, The Healing Hour. I'm your host, Adriana Azarian. And I'm your co-host, Erica Kaiba. And we're talking about Rule 7 of Jordan Peterson's 12 Rules for Life, which is... Pursue what is meaningful, not what is expedient. Okay, we were talking about expediency just now. Yes.

And basically what it means is every single time that you choose to, quote, unquote, do what gets you off the hook the fastest, rather than what you know to be the right thing to do that's, you know, deviating from the structure of meaning that you've... I don't want to... say that you've chosen. I feel like that's misspeaking a little bit that you can just invent meaning. But, I mean, if you know that a certain set of moral precepts are true and you really believe that and you act against it anyway, that would be expediency.

Okay. I have a practical thing to apply to this. Tell us, Adriana. Okay, so he's talking about getting yourself off the hook. Okay, that doesn't have to just be moral things, though. Like, it could be, like, working out. We just did. Exactly. I've heard this expression, choose your hard. You know, life is suffering is what Peterson says. And you have some control over what kind of suffering that you endure. Because the suffering is inevitable, right?

So either you're suffering from, you know, your bones deteriorating and your muscles getting weaker and your body aching. Or you can suffer from working out and putting your body under stress for a short period of time. You know, either a situation is hard, but one is harder than another situation. and one of them is like, you know, it's delayed gratification, whereas the other wife of laziness is very, like, pleasing. In the moment. In the moment. But then you have this delayed pain, as opposed to a pain in the moment that's delayed gratification. That's so true.

And that's such a core idea of the chapter in his passage about the delay of gratification. He sums it up by saying, it's the idea that something better might be attained in the future by giving up something of value in the present. So, for example, laying on the couch might be a very attractive proposition. It usually is to me. Yep. But going to work out means something better in the future. We get to be healthy in the long run. We're doing good by our bodies.

And Peterson goes on to say, this is what you were talking about with suffering and sacrifice. He says such sacrifice, work is delay of gratification. But that's a very mundane phrase to describe something of such profound significance. The discovery that gratification could be delayed was simultaneously the discovery of time and with it causality. at least the causal force of voluntary human action. Long ago, in the dim mists of time, we began to realize that reality was structured as if it could be bargained with.

We learned that behaving properly now, in the present, regulating our impulses, considering the plight of others, could bring rewards in the future, in a time and place that did not yet exist. We began to inhibit, control, and organize our immediate impulses so that we could stop interfering with other people and our future selves. Doing so was indistinguishable for, organizing society.

So that gets very anthropological start of society. We've been doing this. State of nature. State of nature. Yeah. And I think that that's an interesting point. It's something that our ancestors realized at the dawn of time. And I think it's an understanding that's very intuitive.

We all know that working is a sacrifice. But you get really old fables, like the grasshopper and the ant. The grasshopper decides to spend all summer hanging out. and the aunt is actually storing up food for the winter. I mean, we know this intuitively, that we have to work and make certain sacrifices in the present to bring about something better in the future. I think in this podcast in the past,

you've talked about the goodness of resting. Yeah. But do you ever feel, Erica, like, when you're resting for too long, like you want to suffer again? And by that, I mean, you want to work again. You want to be productive. You want to work out. You want to do something that's going to cause you some degree of,

pain. Actually, that's so true. This is something that actually, it occurs to me a lot. Really? For example, if, for example, I'm on summer break or something like that, and I don't have a project that I'm focusing my efforts on and I'm inactive for a period of time mentally and physically. I start to just invent problems in my head and find things to be anxious about. Whoa. Like they say empty minds are the devil's workshop. It's so true. True. I think that when we're in periods of extended inactivity in like various different circles of our life, like, you know, physically, mentally, spiritually, the little... Don't forget dentally. Don't forget dentally. Right. If that, if you haven't been brushing

your teeth, if you haven't been active dentally, guess what's going to accumulate? The plaque. Don't let the mental plaque build up. Don't let the physical plaque build up. Yeah. But I think, yeah, this is also another thing that Jordan Peterson talks about that human beings are built for a load. and that we're creatures that like to work. You know, it's just innate to us. So it's not just that, oh, we're making this huge sacrifice. It's actually we're built so that we like the sacrifice, like you said. I think that's such a good point.

Thank you. Yeah. Thank you. No, because I was planning for fall break and I was thinking, do I just want to sit in my dorm and relax all weekend? Because I haven't under a lot of stress lately. And then I thought, that sounds really awful. No, I don't want to do that.

No, we want to go out. Apple picking together. We are going apple picking this weekend. Erica, would you want to have a movie night at some point during that I would really love to have a movie night? I was thinking we could watch a spooky movie and have popcorn and candy. That would be so good. And also a board game night at a different point. We could have both board game and movie night.

At the same time. Yes. You're listening to The Healing Hour on Radio Free Hillsdale. I'm your host, Adriana Azarian. And I'm your co-host, Erica Kaiva. Thanks for tuning in. We're talking about how we'd like to suffer. Yeah, we are.

And so we were talking about the practical side of Rule 7, of Jordan Peterson's 12 Rules for Life, pursue what is meaningful, not what is expedient. So things that we can do in the moment, choices we can make, to pursue the meaningful thing rather than the expedient thing. I was thinking now we could transition into the metaphysical side of things that Jordan Peterson spends most of the chapter talking about. So he takes this idea of sacrifice that our ancestors learned that sacrificing small things in the present lead up to greater gains in the future. And he takes that to a sort of

ultimate, which of course we get with the sacrifice of Christ. You give up everything to bestow everything on the human race. I don't know how literally Jordan Peterson takes that, but there's the suggestion of it in the chapter. So then at that point, it becomes not just about us, making sacrifices, let's say, I'm going to work instead of hang out so that I can feed myself during the winter. Then it becomes, oh, I'm going to think about feeding my family. I'm going to think about looking out for the poor in my community. And then as you're able to look out for more and more people, then it becomes, well, what's your mission in your nation? What's your mission in the world? It becomes a sort of ultimate. Really, I'm just trying to, like at this point to try

to do good by my family and friends and community right here. Once I figure that out, we'll see if world changing is on the table or not. Yeah. What does doing good look like to you? There's a positive and a negative element to it. And by that, I mean, the negative being, you know, restraining, for example, like irritability or something like that, or if I'm stressed, not taking that out on other people. And then on the positive side, it's, you know, being there for someone when they need me.

If my sister wants to talk to me, then, you know, that comes. first rather than oh well but I'm stressed about this paper well okay but your sister needs you so go be the big sister because that's your responsibility you know that's kind of what I have in mind that's so beautiful thank you how about you Adriana um well I'm the same boat as you because okay the reason I ask the question is because we're college students we don't have jobs like we have jobs on campus jobs but like you know we don't have like careers we don't have family like our own families So I'm just curious to kind of know, like, especially as a busy college student, what it looks like to be good in the world. But for me, that same thing.

Like, being there for my friends, stopping what I'm doing, to be there with them, to go for walks with them, to listen to their problems, to sacrifice, like, get them gifts and get them food and get them ice cream and take them out. And, you know, insofar as I can afford it. And with my parents and my family, it's like, you know, calling them up. Yeah. And, you know, asking how they're doing and reaching out. And yeah. And for me, it's like talking to them and really paying attention. Because I don't, I feel like sometimes if I'm really stressed about something and I'm like, oh, I'm worried about this project. And I let a lot of that on.

I feel like it makes them feel like I don't, I would rather be doing something else than talking to them. And that's really bad. So I try to be fully in the moment with whoever I'm talking to. That's so good. Thank you. I don't always succeed at it. Sometimes stress gets the. better.

Because we are not perfect, unfortunately. I'm not perfect. I'm not perfect. Adren is. That's the importance of the Christian life, really putting a lot of emphasis on sacrifice and fasting and penance and just being able to give things up for greater things because that's an imitation of Christ, right? If Christ is the ultimate example of what a human should be, right? it's like to be fully human is to sacrifice and to suffer.

Right. Yeah, I totally agree with you that there seems, it seems to be that sacrifice is built in to the order of creation. And that's why nihilism is so evil because it kind of rejects that sacrifice. Instead of us sacrificing to make ourselves better and to, by a ripple effect, make the world better, it's pointing outside at the world and saying, well, you should be making the sacrifice for me. And that's where I think we get the most evil ideologies,

not to harp on commies or anything, but point to, like, Carl Marx saying, like, oh, you bourgeois, you're so evil. I'm not the problem. I haven't really done anything to help the proletariat really except get them really upset about their lives. But, you know, you're the problem, not me. Yeah. Oh, my gosh. Marx was not in the reading, by the way.

That was just me, like, pulling it in, but it's kind of like the idea. No, that is so mind-blowingly true. I mean, it's when we turn, okay, so we know that pride is the root of all sins, but this is like totally making it make sense. Like when you are focused on others, right, that's where you find meaning, that's where you find happiness. But when you are focused on yourself, you are never going to be able to fulfill all of your desires. Exactly. You are going to, oh my gosh, that is, that is the root of all, it seems like the root of all, like, social evils in our world is turning it on yourself. So you can go back to.

to Stalinism and communism and Nazis and all that. And it's like, it's all about the self. Everyone else is to suffer because of me. Exactly. And it's exactly what you said. That there's kind of no end to expediency if you're choosing like what's best for you because you just get more greedy, you know?

For like if you're just feeding the appetitive side of you, then you just, the appetitive side just demands more and more. Well, I want more chips. I want more rest. I want to blow off more people without a cause just because it's easy. for me, you know? Yeah. And then I would even go so far to say that it is an indication of a lack of Christ in your life because because I know that Christ, the perfect one, has already suffered for me. No one else needs to suffer for me anymore. Right. Right. But if I

don't believe, if I reject that, then it's like, well, someone needs to suffer for me. So some, other people have to suffer for me now. Right? Because like in your mind, nobody has done that for you. Oh, it's so true. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. It's like you reject the sacrifice. of Christ and then you're trying to replace the sacrifice of Christ. Yeah. Other people. So true. But there is an antidote to that, as Jordan Peterson says. And what his recommendation is, aim up, pay attention, fix what you can fix.

Don't be arrogant in your knowledge. Strive for humility because totalitarian pride manifests itself in intolerance, oppression, torture, and death. Become aware of your own insufficiency. insufficiency, your cowardice, malevolence, resentment, and hatred. Consider the murderousness of your own spirit before you dare accuse others, there's reference to Rule 6, and before you attempt to repair the fabric of the world. Maybe it's not the world that's at fault. Maybe it's you. No.

No, couldn't be. And with that, we undo the whole discussion of the episode. So you can just press pause now and be done. Yeah. Yeah, but I think that's very true. what he says about, you know, paying attention, fixing incrementally the things in your life that you can fix, always aiming up, and then also recognizing our own faults like we just talked about instead of demanding that the world bend itself to our desires. Yes.

And then I think what Jordan Peterson doesn't talk about here, but what we as Christians know is the necessity of grace. So real. So real. Yeah. So, with that said, it's been another very fun episode. episode of the Healing Hour. We hope you enjoyed this discussion as much as we did. We will see you next week when we discuss chapter 8, which is rule 8, which is tell the truth, or at least

don't lie. Oh, I like that. I like that one, too. I actually have a lot of thoughts on that. Me too. Truth is great. We should all pursue that. One could even say that that's the meaningful thing versus the expedient thing, which is lying. I would even say the meaning of life, Erica, is the pursuit of truth. That's so true. Yeah. The pursuit of the good, the true, and the beautiful. Facts. We're all about that here at Hillsdale College.

I have a theory, because beautiful is good and truth is good. So it's just a pursuit of good. That's my whole theory with the transcendental. Really, it's just one transcendental. Right. Yeah. I like that. And then that transcendental is God.

Like, God is good. Fact. Yeah. More of this transcendental truth to come. Next week. Next week. Thanks for listening to 1.1.7 Radio Free Hillsdale, the Healing Hour. I'm your host, Adriana Azarian.

And I'm your co-host, Erica Kaiba. Catch you next week. Signing off. Bye. Ciao.