When It's Hard, Make Something Better. Even Something Tiny.

First published on January 8, 2020

I wonder if it is a general human condition to wonder, sometimes, at the point of it all. To think, why, really, should I put up with life? To think, is it really, genuinely worth it? It may just be a common Western, modern part of the human condition.

I think Freddie felt it: I don't want to die, but I sometimes wish I'd never been born at all.

Some people reading this may not understand what I'm talking about. Others will recognise it all too well. 

This morning, feeling some version of this, I decided to listen to my current audiobook, Jordan Peterson's 12 Rules for Life.

I bought it, already owning the physical book, last month. I had been sitting, after a very difficult few days, reflecting: what can I do to look after myself? One of the answers, somewhat surprising to me, was to buy 12 Rules... on audiobook and take it for a long walk. The supernatural aid I needed to do this arrived when I checked Amazon and found an offer for an Audible free trial.

The next day, after listening to the first few chapters, I found myself - even in the midst of turbulence and emotional fragility - sharing something on Facebook (and writing about that here) which felt like it broke through something I had been wrestling with for months.

Today, I switched it on again. And there was Peterson, speaking about how nihilism is in some ways sensible, given the world. How, really, it's very rational to wonder what the point of any of it all is and how many great thinkers have done this. In fact, if you're rational, and if you don't have a religious belief, you'd be a fool not to. 

I know, sitting in times of my life like this, that they will almost certainly pass. I have good evidence for this, even if it doesn't feel true: after all, they have always passed before.

The question we might ask, though, is how do we speed up their passing? How do we make sure they pass a little quicker this time than last time? Or how do we make sure they pass a little faster next time than they will this time? 

That's the game of developing ourselves. It's not that we won't have the tough times in the future, it's that by responding to them with more skill we can transcend or negotiate them with the agility to move more quickly back to our centred, higher self.

Peterson's answer is clear. The section I listened to this morning sits in Rule 6 - Set your house in perfect order before you criticise the world - and his offering is: make something a little better. Something in your life. Something in your house, or your 'house'. Then, when you've done that, perhaps it's more valid to criticise the pointlessness of life. Then, when you've done that, perhaps you can be more sure that it's life that is pointless, and not what you're doing with it.

And making something better, even something tiny... Well, that's better than nothing, after all.