Suffering In Jordan Peterson

 On Page 197 of his book, 12 RULES FOR LIFE AN ANTIDOTE TO CHAOS, Jordan found his first principle of existence, the substrata of existence, which could not be doubted, and upon which he could build a philosophy of life.

Now Descartes the epistemologist famously concluded that he could not doubt his own existence or consciousness because he was thinking, whether delude or not about what he was thinking, it did not matter. He thought because he existed. He was able to build a metaphysical castle upon this certain fact, his epistemological foundation. 

If Descartes was a foundationalist, essentialist, and epistemologist, then Jordan Peterson is an existentialist, asserting that he and we exist because we suffer, and there is no doubt about that, and that fact of existence exists, and cannot be doubted.

For Descartes, essence precedes existence. For Jordan Peterson, existence precedes essence.