12 Rules for Life: An Antidote to Chaos

“Happy” is by no means synonymous with “good.”

A good lecturer is thus talking with and not at or even to his or her listeners. To manage this, the lecturer needs to be closely attending to the audience’s every move, gesture and sound. Perversely, this cannot be done by watching the audience, as such. A good lecturer speaks directly to and watches the response of single, identifiable people,fn2

We are always and simultaneously at point “a” (which is less desirable than it could be), moving towards point “b” (which we deem better, in accordance with our explicit and implicit values).

“No tree can grow to Heaven,” adds the ever-terrifying Carl Gustav Jung, psychoanalyst extraordinaire, “unless its roots reach down to Hell.”134 Such a statement should give everyone who encounters it pause.

Horror and terror lurk behind the walls provided so wisely by our ancestors. We tear them down at our peril.

In general, people improve with age, rather than worsening, becoming kinder, more conscientious, and more emotionally stable as they mature.83 Bullying at the sheer and often terrible intensity of the schoolyard84 rarely manifests itself in grown-up society.

Lying leads to Hell. It was the great and the small lies of the Nazi and Communist states that produced the deaths of millions of people.

Question for parents: do you want to make your children safe, or strong?

her way to the shopping mall. It’s busy and difficult to park. This makes her even more stressed. The thoughts of vulnerability occupying her mind since her recent unpleasant experience rise close to the surface. They trigger anxiety. Her heart rate rises. She begins to breathe shallowly and quickly. She feels her heart racing and begins to wonder