RULE 72: Dress Well

[October 24, 2026]  Your clothes are not exactly for you; they’re more for other people.  In any social setting, your clothing is a gesture of respect to others.  You certainly don’t want to look like someone who would have people run away from, who see you for the first time.  The Rule is to dress well.

Dress well because people will believe that you are sophisticated enough to know what the social rules are and are capable of following them.  We should be sick of the idea that we are like kids, by dressing like them.

This rule doesn’t mean that anyone who fails to dress up in a suit is disrespectful.  But, there’s something about outfitting yourself for the task at hand.  There’s also something about you putting your best foot forward.

Do you want to look like a slob?  Are you announcing that you don’t “give a damn?”  Are you saying that you are, in your words, “above it all?”  Then consider you are acting like a kid.  True enough that our culture pushes the idea that teenage life is some sort of pinnacle, so everybody dresses down so they look like an overgrown 10-year-old. There’s something clearly demeaning about that.

Provide people with an opportunity to dress up in a classic way and look like adults.  Present yourself in that manner.  There’s something very attractive about that.  We haven’t done that recently in our culture.  It’s been downplayed for at least since the 1960s hippie generation. Another rule might be, “Don’t be a hippie.”

The 1960s generation fashion has had a hold on us for some time now.  It is a sort of rebellious attitude that anything that violates traditional norms, or even anything that’s associated with adulthood is stuffy or antiquated somehow and should be eliminated in favor of what is hypothetically more “free individuality.”  It’s not.  Everybody now looks the same.

If you are willing to add a little fashion to your dressing well, then perhaps there’s something about you that is a bit “cool.”  This means you might just be on the edge, which is kind of an exciting place to be and to meet people.  That way, you won’t scare people on your first encounter, and you can introduce yourself.  That is not so bad.

Plus, it is an adventure that will take you places, good places, you cannot imagine.

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NOTE: Much of this article is taken from various lectures by Prof. Jordan Peterson.

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Please read my books:

1. “Growing Up Free,” on Amazon (link here)
2. “55 Rules for a Good Life,” on Amazon (link here)
3. “Our Longest Year in Iraq,” on Amazon (link here).