Jordan Peterson:
Why refuse to specify, when specifying the problem would enable its solution? Because to specify the problem is to admit that it exists. Because to specify the problem is to allow yourself to know what you want, say, from friend or lover—and then you will know, precisely and cleanly, when you don’t get it, and that will hurt, sharply and specifically. But you will learn something from that, and will use what you learn in the future—and the alternative to that single sharp pain is the dull ache of continued hopelessness and vague failure and the sense that time, precious time, is slipping by.
12 Rules for Life, page 276.
If you set a definite and precise goal, or if you specifically and precisely identify a problem, things might not turn out the way you want.
That will be painful.
But!
If you do not set a definite and precise goal, or if you shy away from specifically and precisely identifying a problem, shit gets worse. Much worse, in ways you can’t imagine—because you have left your life in the hands of others, and fate.
Better to face the error of a poorly imagined goal. You might not really want that thing. Good to learn. I really wanted a murdered out Mercedes Benz S Class. Black. Windows tinted to utter darkness, slightly lowered, all that.
No actually, I didn’t. But younger me did. And I had to walk toward that dream a bit to discover that it was a false goal. I never consummated that desire. I got as far as several years of E Class daily drivers to realize the dream was dust.
Even the E Class—who really gives a fuck? It’s just a car, burdened with the nagging sense of unreliability accepted as the price for outward appearances. Benzes are overly complicated, expensive, failure-prone machines. What a dreadful, soul-denying bargain to make with yourself! Suboptimal choices in your life, made to (you think, probably incorrectly) look good to others who don’t even know you and never will. (That’s what I learned from my itching desire for an S Class.)
Or maybe I continue to strive, and fail publicly. That would be painful. He thought he would achieve X and he didn’t. Other people would mock me and judge me.
Actually, no. Other people are thinking of themselves, not me. I think about how I think about others and their fortunes/misfortunes: briefly judgmental, then compassionate, then “live and let live”. Then back to me me me. And anyway, I will soon enough be dead, and so will the object of my judgment.
That vague dullness, though. It’s suffocating.
What can I say, precisely, to myself alone (at first) about me and my circumstances? What can I specifically identify to dissipate the dull sense of approaching doom?
Why refuse to specify? Because while you are failing to define success (and thereby rendering it impossible) you are also refusing to define failure, to yourself, so that if and when you fail you won’t notice, and it won’t hurt. But that won’t work! You cannot be fooled so easily—unless you have gone very far down the road! You will instead carry with you a continual sense of disappointment with your own Being and the self-contempt that comes along with that and the increasing hatred for the world that all of that generates (or degenerates).
12 Rules for Life, page 276
Perspective. Everything didn’t go to hell. Specific things. Identifiable beliefs. Particular actions were false. (Page 277.)
When things fall apart, and chaos re-emerges, we can give structure to it, and re-establish order, through our speech. If we speak carefully and precisely, we can sort things out, and put them in their proper place, and set a new goal, and navigate to it—often communally, if we negotiate; if we reach consensus. If we speak carelessly and imprecisely, however, things remain vague. The destination remains unproclaimed. The fog of uncertainty does not lift, and there is no negotiating through the world.
12 Rules for Life, page 278.
Speak precisely. Specify your goals.