Every now and again you come across an idea that seems so simple to grasp that your immediate reaction is "of course, like duh!", only to later meet people who are somehow confused by that very idea. You might respond by telling yourself, "I must be smarter than them" or "They are just idiots". Or you might ask yourself — "am I wrong, am I blind to something, or blinded by something? Is this idea more complicated than I thought? Or are they blind to its innate simplicity?"
If you are reading this (and you are!), then you probably know who Jordan Peterson is and his famous (one of many) "clean your room before you attempt to organize the world" idea. You also probably have a strong opinion of him already, perhaps you like him so much that you barely ever question anything he says. Or you disagree with him so much, that when he says Canada is in the West, you pick up the map!
Either way, put aside your feelings for him for a second because that is one source of blindness. And blindness happens to be a keyword here.
When I first heard the phrase "clean up your room before you attempt to criticize the world", I thought "there is a simple idea that everybody past 12 can agree on". So wrong was I! Turns out, it is actually quite a controversial and strangely confusing statement! People debate over it all over social media, youtube in particular. Some go as far as to say "this is a way to silence criticism", which is such a weird interpretation considering Jordan Peterson is himself a critique of sorts.
The idea itself is not actually new at all. It is as profound as it is ancient. Luke 6:42 (yes, the bible!) says:
How can you think of saying, ‘Friend, let me help you get rid of that speck in your eye,’ when you can’t see past the log in your own eye? Hypocrite! First get rid of the log in your own eye; then you will see well enough to deal with the speck in your friend’s eye.
The idea is this, if you attempted to sort your own affairs (which you probably are doing) with diligence (which you probably aren't) you will quickly realize just how hard it actually is to do. You will notice how complicated a task as simple as cleaning your room can get. This seems to be the first thing people get confused with. Cleaning your room is both a metaphor (just like getting rid of the speck in your eye) and a literal suggestion. It is a metaphor for -sorting out something in your own domain, something simple that bothers you and you know needs sorting. If you are a highly disorganized person, the literal definition, trying to keep your room clean day in and day out, is a sufficient start. But it can mean something else — attend to the issues in your marriage, take steps to end that addiction, start the diet you know you need to start and stick to it, work out 3 times a week, and read more (another famous quote by Jordan Peterson!), etc.
Now you might arrive at the conclusion that this means you will never be able to criticize the world because sorting oneself is an endless task. And thus, this idea is truly about silencing criticism. And you would be wrong, though forgiven. This brings us to the second takeaway from this, compassion.
That's right, compassion. If you are acutely aware of how hard it is for you to just sort out your room, you will also be aware of just how hard and complicated it is to sort out a family, a society, a nation, a culture,… the freaking world! You will not go around with half-baked solutions to problems of the outer world, vilifying people left-right-and-center for not doing what you think is simple and ought to be done. You will not be screaming defund the X or build a Y… okay, okay, let me not lose half of you. You get the point, hopefully. You will have compassion for the people out there who are trying to sort out domains larger than your room.
And that's not it, perhaps this seemingly simple idea is not that simple after all — it packs a lot! You will be slightly more competent.
The experience you gain from sorting out your own room will strengthen you with tools of competence that you can then apply to the outer world (though poorly, very poorly, at first). It is essentially your resume. This is why, for example, happy family photos get our politicians elected, we think — well, if he/she can keep that unit together, they can probably do the same for this city.
That's it. "Clean up your room" is a metaphor and a literal idea that calls for us to undertake smaller tasks before taking on larger ones so that we can be more competent and have a necessary level of compassion. I mean, duh!
