Rule XI

 On Page 303 of his book, BEYOND ORDER 12 MORE RULES FOR LIFE, Jordan Peterson writes this rule: "Do not allow yourself to become resentful, deceitful or arrogant."

With this rule, Peterson warns the reader that resentment, mendacity and overconfidence about what one chooses to do, often parallel to one's making terrible choices, this triad of fell attributes will lead you right to hell. 

Both Peterson and Dennis Prager dislike self-esteem theory, regarding it as facile, shallow and selfish and narcissism-conducive.

It can be those things, but I insist that selfishness is the trait of a joiner-groupist, far more than it is the trait of a maverizer/individualist/egoist/individuator.

Without self-esteem, charity at home, there will be no charity towards others. To hate the self is to wallow in resentment. To hate the self is to lie to the self, and there is no way to be clear about anything. All is living in a fog. Those that are arrogant are too self-confident to mask their deep inner lack of self-esteem.

An individuator would be confident but not arrogant. He is logical more than driven by his feelings and passions, so his powerful sensibility for the need to remain cautious, prudent, and careful will override any temptation he has to make wild pronouncements to the world.

One of the corollaries to my definition of self-esteem for the maverizer is that he loves himself. If he loves himself, he will treat himself with courtesy and care. He will then treat all other spirits, people and even strangers with similar concern and politeness, because displaying manners in public is his affirmation in action, showing God and himself that he feels okay and extends that expectation to others in thought, word, and deed.

Let me quote Jordan from Page 303:"You have your reasons for being resentful, deceitful, and arrogant. You face, or will face, terrible, chaotic, forces, and you will sometimes be outmatched. Anxiety, doubt, shame, pain, and illness, the agony of conscience, the soul-shattering pit of grief, dashed dreams and disappointments, the reality of betrayal, subjection to the tyranny of social being, and the ignominy of aging unto death--how could you not degenerate, rage, and sin, and come to hate even hope itself? I want you to know how you might resist that decline, that degeneration into evil. To do so--to understand your own personality and its temptation by darkness--you need to know what you are up against. You need to understand your motivations for evil--and the triad of resentment, deceit, and arrogance is as good a decomposition of what constitutes evil as I have been able to formulate."