[September 20, 2022] You need to have a vision for your life. Not some whimsical outlook on your life, but you need to seriously believe in what you want and be willing to make the sacrifices necessary. You have to be all in on it. You’re not okay the way you are!
Dr. Jordan Peterson speaks to this issue often. As a very atypical psychologist, he asks his clients, “What are you willing to be?” “What’s worth it going all in on?” The answer to that, he says, is to just ask yourself. The typical psychologist likes to pat people on the head and say, “You’re all right, the way you are.” Peterson says that one of the things he tells young people all the time is that this is all rubbish.
Not only are you not okay the way you are, but you also don’t think that anybody else is okay the way they are, either. You don’t think your children are okay the way they are. You love them, of course. But you don’t want them to stay three years old their entire life. You want them to expand and improve and become who they are.
Telling young people that they are okay the way they are is a terrible idea. They need to hear a harsh message, especially if they are desperate. Many young men and women are not in a good position in their life. They don’t have any goals. They’re drinking too much. They’re watching pornography all the time. They’ve got no aim, no structure in their life, and they are miserable. And that misery is twisting them into malevolence.
To come along in their lives and tell them, “Well, you’re okay just the way you are.” That’s the last thing they want to hear. The message should be, “Get your damn act together.” They need to be told that they have things to do and it will be difficult. Pick up the weight of your suffering, do so voluntarily, and walk uphill with it.
That gives you the meaning you need in life and stops you from degenerating in a dangerous manner. That actually makes things better.
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Please read my new book, “Our Longest Year in Iraq,” on Amazon (link here).
Best advice I ever heard.
Amazing ideas! Turns things upside down.
I have just learned that Gen. Satterfield’s father passed away just two days ago and I left a message in this leadership forum. I wanted to also link this idea in this article to those who pass away. Remember always that you have room for improvement and that you can always be the person in the room who helps guide others to be better themselves. That is a calling that few of us have but is one of the more nobler causes in life. Thank you, Gen. Satterfield and your father and mother for helping make you who you are and for helping us too, thru your son.
Rev. Cain, well said. Just what I was thinking. ✝️️
Yes, well said.
Rev Cain, thank you for expressing what many of us are thinking. I did enjoy this article and today’s (Wednesday) too. Gen. Satterfield is a gem.
Excellent article that deserves a good read.
Yep, my thinking exactly. Oh, BTW, this leadership forum provided by Gen. Satterfield is a greater resource than most of us can appreciate, at least initially. If you read Gen. S’s articles, then it is a good idea to drop down into the forum to scan for more ideas. You will find them here. You will also see developing ideas before they become more mainstream. The lesson? Read this forum. It will do you good and you won’t have to say, “I missed something important.”
Just a note to Gen. Satterfield to say that I’ve noticed the slight change in direction of his blog to “Leadership and the Pursuit of Responsibility.” Very appropriate in a world that does not want responsibility.
Short, but great article today, Gen. Satterfield. Oh, finally Amazon sent me your book (what’s up with their slow service these days?) on the Iraq War. “Our Longest Year in Iraq” is sitting on my desk and I started reading it last night. Thanks.
You’ll enjoy the book. A story on every page. I read my copy three times to make sure I got all the detials.
https://www.amazon.com/Our-Longest-Year-Iraq-Construction/dp/1737915510/
Got my copy of “Our Longest Year in Iraq.” Buy it now! You will be happy you did. 👍
Right!!! Most folks will just blow off these comments but really, please purchase Gen. Satterfield’s book. It cost little and you will gain so much.
It cost little and you will gain so much. You took the words right out of my mouth.
“Telling young people that they are okay the way they are is a terrible idea. ” Gen. Satterfield is very correct and this is a message we all need to hear. Don’t patronize kids. They can figure you out so quick that it will make your head spin. They know when you are lying and then they know that the “most trusted adults” in their lives will lie to them.
So true PS. Thanks for the note on this. I was thinking along the same lines but was having a hard time thinking of the words.
Be more than you can be.
Gen. Satterfield, another great article helping us (me especially) to grasp some of the fundamental issues of our times.
POW!
Here is an important quote from Gen. Satterfield.
To come along in their lives and tell them, “Well, you’re okay just the way you are.” That’s the last thing they want to hear. The message should be, “Get your damn act together.”
Got that right. ✔✔✔✔✔
Exactly the opposite of what is taught in teaching today. Teachers are told to tell their young students that they are perfect the way they are regardless of their own thoughts and ideas. Children are not yet formed. Their thoughts of the way they are, are immature and ungrounded, often, and not so unexpectedly but to tell them they are “okay” is a terrible idea.
Yep, schools today have become, by their own admission, “safe spaces.” The real problem …. is that there is no such thing as a ‘safe space.’ Reality is hard. Ignoring that reality means one day you will have to face obstacles and malevolent forces. You will then be wholly unprepared.
Good comments Max and Tom. I’m with you on this but what you are saying is now out of favor from the leftists who run our country. What to do about it is more than an existential quesiton.
Schools are in decline all across the West and especially public primary schools in America. This decline has been going on now for at least half a century. We’ve gotten away from their true purpose and have become beholden to teacher unions.
—- and that is the biggest problem we are facing when we can no longer trust our educational institutions to put out qualified kids, that have a basic grounding in reading, writing, and rithmetic.
Well said, Max. Nailed it. 😀
yes ✝️️