# Quote — Jordan B. Peterson, 12 Rules for Life

> The first step, perhaps, is to take stock. Who are you? When you buy a house and prepare to live in it, you hire an inspector to list all its faults—as it is, in reality, now, not as you wish it could be. You’ll even pay him for the bad news. You need to know. You need to discover the home’s hidden flaws. You need to know whether they are cosmetic imperfections or structural inadequacies. You need to know because you can’t fix something if you don’t know it’s broken—and you’re broken. You need an inspector. The internal critic—it could play that role, if you could get it on track; if you and it could cooperate.

- Author: [Jordan B. Peterson](https://www.leafyquotes.com/jordan-b-peterson.md)
- Book: [12 Rules for Life](https://www.leafyquotes.com/jordan-b-peterson/12-rules-for-life.md)
- Page: 93
- Source: [Wikiquote](https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Jordan_Peterson#12_Rules_for_Life_(2017)) ([CC BY-SA 4.0](https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/))
- Quote page: https://www.leafyquotes.com/jordan-b-peterson/12-rules-for-life/the-first-step

## More from this book

> People organize their brains with conversation. If they don't have anyone to tell their story to, they lose their minds. Like hoarders, they cannot unclutter themselves.

p. 250 — [Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/jordan-b-peterson/12-rules-for-life/people-organize-their.md)

> It took untold generations to get you where you are. A little gratitude might be in order. If you’re going to insist on bending the world to your way, you better have your reasons.

p. 242 — [Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/jordan-b-peterson/12-rules-for-life/it-took-untold.md)

> Was it really a good thing, for example, to so dramatically liberalize the divorce laws in the 1960s? It’s not clear to me that the children whose lives were destabilized by the hypothetical freedom this attempt at liberation introduced would say so. Horror and terror lurk behind the walls provided so wisely by our ancestors. We tear them down at our peril. We skate, unconsciously, on thin ice, with deep, cold waters below, where unimaginable monsters lurk.

p. 119 — [Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/jordan-b-peterson/12-rules-for-life/was-it-really.md)