Breaking the Cycle: How to Determine What Serves You

A man once told me, “stop allowing yourself to be exposed to ideas that don’t serve you and start to move in a better direction that does serve you now.” The thought occurs to me that it might be that people in my life don’t actually know what serves them or what it means for something to serve or not serve them or how to know how to know what’s really going on in the totality of a statement like that. So, let's take a moment and break down this idea of what “serves” you for ourselves to better assist in understanding the bigger picture.

What does it mean that something does or does not serve you? Ultimately, it comes down to, in my world, whether or not it gets you what you want or moves you away from getting what you want. It either puts you in tune with what you want or it gets you out of tune with it. What happens when something is out of tune with the overall picture of what you're trying to go for? It gets out of harmony. Now, there are some music styles that use what is traditionally out of tune in one style in a new way giving birth to a new sound or style from a separate tradition altogether. But we're not going there.

My point is, is this thing that you're being exposed to moving you closer to (serving you) what you want or away from it (not serving you) what you want and/or closer to what you don't want which is not in harmony with what you do.

Now, here's the challenge with an idea like this. Who rules over what serves you? In other words, who knows best what is best for you or not. The majority of us having spent our childhoods in a society that wants to rule on everything in your life have been taught that there is always someone in authority who will rule on what is right or wrong in your life. That someone else external to you knows what's best. That you gotta get from the people in charge what you need in order to get what you want. Now, let's be clear. I'm not saying you break all the rules or that you need not follow them to get what you want. I'm saying something far closer to the reality of the situation. Something that Dr. Jordan Peterson tells his children as they're growing up is a very a simple rule. He obviously has plenty of rules for life but the one simple rule I'm speaking is this idea that, "You don't have to follow stupid rules."

Again, this is NOT a call to arms or action against all rules in general. This idea that, "You don't have to follow stupid rules," puts his children in the driver seat of their own life, speaking to their nature and ability to decide for themselves what is best for them ... and what best serves them. If I come up against a rule that for me embodies stupidity in all its ways, I'm now breaking the rule my father has given me by following the rule someone else has that is just plain stupid. It's now up to "me" in the scenario I'm giving you that one needs to decide for themselves which rules are stupid. It now is not blind acceptance of authority from someone else but a certainty with which you can speak to as the arbiter and decision maker over your own life and reality which rules specifically not only serve you but aren't stupid and which ones do not and are.

These things do not exist in a vacuum.

Another thing does come into play here as an idea on the outside of the scope and magnification of what I’m speaking to from the level that I am. If I am someone who is just a plain bastard and thinks all rules are stupid, obviously that's not who Dr. Jorden Peterson is speaking to. He's trusting the judgement of his children and the ability they have within themselves that he himself has instilled within them by virtue of not only direction he’s given them but example. He's shown them how he himself doesn't follow stupid rules and helps them see that their own judgement of whether or not they can trust themselves in deciding which rules are stupid and thus do not need to be followed comes down to what is already innate inside of yourself.

With yourself in the driver seat, safety obviously plays a big part. I'm NOT saying to put yourself in danger because of a rule that you think is stupid not being following that actually keeps you safe. I'm saying become someone in your own life who can decide for yourself which rules are stupid and which one's aren't. I'm saying don't look to somebody else to need to decide right from wrong for you. I'm saying if what you want is to be someone who is an authority in your own life and doesn't need to look to other people to decide for you which rules are and aren't worth following, start here with trying to figure out what are the characteristics of a stupid rule, what is the sense you get from a rule being stupid or not (and how can you begin to trust that sense), how can you begin to test your theories, ideas, and observations about the rules you’re engaging with and eventually through this method of questioning, testing, and movement forward, it's safe to say you can unlearn for yourself how not to judge what is and isn't stupid and by virtue how not to need look to someone else for the answer.

One final note, and I’ll end on this, I am reminded of a story as I collect the necessary information I want to share in this post. There is a mother and her daughter making a pot roast for dinner. As they are cooking, the daughter realizes that her mother always cuts off the ends of the pot roast before placing it in the oven. She does this every single time, and this time is no different. She asks her mother, “Mom, why do you cut off the ends of the pot roast?” The mother thinks about it for a second and replies, “Well dear, that’s just the way my mother always did it and how I learned to do it. Why don’t you ask your grandma?” The daughter, with her mother in tow, then visits the grandmother and asks, “Grandma, how come you always cut off the ends of the pot roast before putting it in the oven?” The grandmother responds, “Well dear, that’s just the way my mother always did it and how I learned to do it. Why don’t you ask your great grandma?”

Now, being the keen observer that she is, she follows up with her great grandmother and asks her, “How come you always cut off the ends of the pot roast? Does it somehow make the meal better?” The great grandma’s response is priceless. “Haha no, my dear. When I was first married, the oven in the house we lived in was too small, so I had to cut off the ends of the pot roast to make it fit.”