The question of why Jordan Peterson encourages everyone to make their bed is a question of a life that demands to take control of itself and by extension take control of the processes and the challenges life takes one through to summit. Sincerely, Peterson encourages everyone to make their bed as part of his broader message about taking responsibility for one’s life and starting the day with a small, manageable task.
Within the concept of his truth, he no doubt believes that making one’s bed can set a positive tone for the day, thus providing a sense of accomplishment and order that can carry over into other tasks and challenges. In addition, it can serve as a symbolic act of taking control and bringing order to one’s immediate environment, which aligns with his teachings about personal responsibility and self-improvement.
Who is Jordan B. Peterson?
Jordan Bernt Peterson is a Canadian psychologist, author, and media commentator. Often described as conservative, he began to receive widespread attention in the late 2010s for his views on cultural and political issues. Peterson has described himself as a classic British liberal and a traditionalist.
He is a strong supporter of universal healthcare, redistribution of wealth towards the poor, and the decriminalization of drugs. Just as someone puts him sometime ago:
Peterson’s ideas are a mixed bag: He says some sensible and insightful things, and he says some things that rightly draw criticism. But you wouldn’t know this from reading Peterson’s critics, who generally cast him as a far-right boogeyman riding the wave of a misogynistic backlash. That’s a mistake.
Making Your Own Bed: Meaning
As said earlier, making one’s bed means taking control of one’s life by oneself without passing blame or expecting a hand as the reason for one’s uplift. It further foregrounds the truth that true change can only be effected by one.
It teaches you to leave the system alone and see what you can do locally. See if you can put yourself together. See if you can put your environment together.
And you’ll find if you’re in a chaotic household, and a chaotic household would be one where no one has any discipline, no one has any aims, and there’s a terrible battle between Cain and Abel going on all the time. So, life sucks and everything is miserable and you’re cynical and there’s no point in trying anything because everything is meaningless and who the hell is going to care in a million years.
In the midst of these and as you are faced with the challenge of taking responsibility, people and countercultures will try and soften you and make you want to take a pass.
They’re going to put every psychological object possible in your way. Because if you succeed, even in something that trivial, you shed a very dim light on their existence. And so they’re going to do everything they can to take you out. And so people think cleaning your room, that’s a cliche.
Against all these odds, the the truth is that what is left of you is you. You are the only hero you have got. So stand and make your own bed!!
For instance: You might as well start with what’s right in front of you, it’s a lot harder than it looks. Because to clean up your room means to accept that it’s actually necessary for you to take that little bit of chaos that’s in front of you, that chaotic potential, and cast it into habitable order.
And then you have to develop the right attitude toward it. It’s like I’m going to put my room in order. Well what does that mean?
Order is in relationship to something. If your desk is ordered, you’ve ordered it because you’re going to work there and you’re working there on something valuable, and so the order is conceived of in relationship…You can’t order your room without falling into purpose.
So Jordan Peterson’s Make Your Own Bed is basically about sharing his perspective on how you can take control of your life and live more intentionally by taking positive action.
