Rule 10: Be Precise In Your Speech

12 Rules For Life Book Summary Analysis (Jordan B. Peterson)

“There is a story for children named there’s no such thing as a Dragon by Jack Kent, it tells a story of a child named Billy Bixby. Who spies on a dragon sitting on his bed one morning. It’s about the size of a house cat and friendly. He tells his mother about it, but she tells him that there’s no such thing as a dragon. So it starts to grow. It eats all of Billy’s pancakes. Soon it fills the whole house. Mum tries to vacuum, but she has to go in and out of the house through the windows because the dragon is everywhere. It takes her forever. Then the Dragon runs off with the house.”

“Billy’s dad comes home and there’s just an empty space where they used to live. The mailman tells him where the house went. and he chases after it, climbs up the Dragon’s head and now sprawling out into the street, finally rejoins his wife and son, mom still insists that the dragon does not exist, but Billy has pretty much had it by now insists there is a dragon mom. Instantly, it starts to shrink soon and soon it’s cat-sized. Everyone agrees that the dragon of that size, one, exists and are much preferable to their gigantic counterparts. Mom, eyes, reluctantly opened by this point, ask somewhat plaintively why it had to get so big. Billy quietly suggests, maybe it wanted to be noticed.”

“The moral of the story is the consequence of sweeping things under the rug. The moral of this story is the consequence of not facing the accumulated chaos and disorder that can manifest. “Maybe this is the moral of many stories. Chaos emerges in a household bit by bit, mutual happiness and resentment pile up, everything untidy is swept under the rug where the dragon feasts on the crumbs. The dragon is the lie. The dragon is the sin of omission. But no one says anything, as the shared society and negotiated order of the household reveals itself as inadequate or disintegrates in the face of the unexpected and threatening. Everybody whistles in the dark instead. Communication would require an…