Hope for Teenagers: How to Deploy the Higher Will
It’s everywhere. Teenage suicide rates have skyrocketed, outpacing those rates amongst other age groups. Similarly, rates of self-harm are at the highest amongst adolescents. We all know kids who are off-track, losing their ‘way’.
We know that when young people fall out of step with their peers disaster can ensue. It’s hard to recalibrate, easy to fall behind, tempting to take the path of least resistance and reach for instant gratification. What we can know, what we need to know: some young people are using the ideas of Jordan Peterson to get back in the groove. There are some amazing stories.
Here’s one of them.
At the age of 14, William Izarra fell ill and was off school for a number of weeks. When he returned, he struggled with schoolwork. He was behind and, by November, he gave up, choosing to do school online, so he could start the year afresh. In theory, it was a good idea. In practice, it was a disaster.
Isolated from his friends and with no particular schedule, he began playing computer games for about 14 hours a day. He did no schoolwork at all. He reflects,
“I wasn’t keeping up with my hygiene, or even paying attention to how my room looked. There were monster cans left and right, dirty clothes on the floor and everything was disorganized.”
He was eating unhealthy food, getting no sunlight and lost a normal sleep/wake schedule. In his mind, he told himself that he was on the path to a very successful gaming career. In actuality, he was deteriorating. He developed a bad temper and would erupt, breaking things, punching the wall.
Four months into the new nonexistent schedule, he recognized that he had lost any semblance of discipline. He decided to try a different online school. William reported, “I dragged myself painfully through it while getting nothing done.”
In the meantime, the state of the world itself was in disarray. The violent riots occurred in the spring. William reported that the general chaos out there “threw me into the abyss.” He felt that he had completely gone insane, was in the worst state he had ever been in and was spending 10 hours a day interacting on social media. He quit school.
It’s hard to imagine a happy ending here. The world is in lockdown. His efforts to start over have failed. It’s chaos out there and it’s chaos ‘in here’. Then, something amazing happened. He was spending most of his time on devices, playing games. He came upon a video that explained how Jordan Peterson dominates interviews. Will says, “I looked him up and saw he had a lot more to offer than politics.” The rest, as they say, is history.
William continued spending hours and hours each day in front of the computer. Now, he was listening to Jordan Peterson lectures. He watched him for about eight hours a day. He lay in his bed and watched and watched and watched. For about a week. Now it is June 1st. He decided to activate. He would start by focusing on health and hygiene.
“I started working out every day. I started brushing my teeth every day (which I had not done in years). I started to take showers every other day. I started to eat healthy and completely clean my room. I was also taking time to just fix small things around the house, like picking up a random sock on the ground and putting it where it belonged. I also started to clean the surrounding rooms, like my playroom, which was filled to the brim with junk. I got that room cleaned in a week, just by cleaning up for 20 minutes a day.
As I kept watching Jordan and his teachings, I started to pay more attention to my behavior and my thoughts. I watched my resentment and accepted it, along with closely paying attention to if I was being too pushy or too passive i.e. disagreeable or agreeable.”
William was getting up to speed on Peterson’s topics. Peterson discusses the Five Factor model of personality which gives people a lens for thinking about their personality traits. He was also turning on to Peterson’s series on the Bible. “I love his breakdown of the Bible and how he explained all the archetypes that fill that book.” Will continues watching. “I basically watch anything that has Jordan, whether it’s a podcast, Biblical series or stuff on politics.”
By July, he decided to cultivate a schedule. Now 15, he’s consistently going to sleep at 10 PM and waking up, believe it or not, at 5:30 in the morning. When he gets up, he plans his days.
He started graphing his progress on a calendar. “In the first month I had improved by 860% based on my past predictive performance.” He was marking down his productivity each day. He started to help his mom outside on the property which he had never done before and especially not with enthusiasm and excitement!
He reports,
“I’m also requiring myself to work on art for at least 15 minutes a day. I have been improving socially a lot. I have repaired my friendship with a lot of my friends and I have started making friends with people all over the place. I have also completely solved my rage problem due to a presence of serotonin.”
Peterson suggests that the more productive a person is, the more serotonin the body produces, the more empowered they become, the more resilient they get. It’s what we call a ‘virtuous cycle’: one good change leads to another. William would tell you that Jordan Peterson has got it right when it comes to understanding how to architect a self that would make a person “thrilled to be alive.”
Says Will,
“Now, I always catch myself when I start to aim down. I can now easily pull myself out of feeling destructive. I am now going through the process of building discipline, which is the hardest ‘dragon’ I have had to conquer, but I’ll get through it.”
How did I learn about William? He asked, on social media, for a way to get a letter of gratitude to Jordan Peterson because he felt that he had made life-changing progress thanks to all the videos and talks that Peterson shared. Says William, “he has completely changed my life for the better.” You can’t argue with success.
Will is on a good trajectory. He is currently doing his program online and academically doing well. He hopes to start working on a business, having a few ideas in his pocket. For now, though, he is focusing exclusively on school.
I continue to hear astounding stories of progress. People discuss their progress on social media, leave comments under the lectures, grateful for the guidance and inspiration they have found in Dr. Peterson’s materials.
Adolescents today are in crisis. Their electronics provide visual ‘social proof’ that their lives are wanting, that everybody else is doing better, feeling better, achieving more. I, personally, cannot imagine undergoing adolescence in this particular era. No wonder so many are struggling. It’s for this reason that I recently wrote Finding One Self: A Teenager’s Guide for Using Jordan Peterson’s Rules for Life to Sort Yourself Out. Designed for teenage girls, let’s see if Peterson’s ideas, so useful to young men, might be of help to their female counterparts..
Thank you, Dr. Peterson. Will has his life back. He, no doubt, will be a contributing member of society, an excellent father, a role model for other young men. He thanks you for the inspiration and insight. We thank you for illuminating the path for this young man, and many others, helping them to manifest their higher will.
Addendum: I must share a comment just posted on the IDW about this article:
It says a lot about the insights of Mr. Peterson. But, it moreover it says volumes about a young man who was inspired to change his lot and find a better direction for his life. I, fortunately , did not go down that dark road he was headed, but I am amazed at the young man’s epiphany and his steadfast determination to turn his life around. And I respect his daily regimen to acquire his goal. Slow and plodding he attained his prize and a sense of accomplishment and self esteem that society does not champion much nowadays. Bravo, Will.
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