These are my thoughts about Rule 3 from Jordan B. Peterson’s “40 Rules”. You can read them all here. In the case of the rules that made it into his “12 Rules for Life” book, I’m not going to repeat any of his explanations here. These are my own thoughts about each rule from my own life and experience.

3. Act so that you can tell the truth about how you act.

To me, this is just an extension of Rule 1 (tell the truth or at least don’t lie). By following Rule 1 “religiously”, you’ll find out quickly whether you’re acting in ways that cause you to hide what you’re doing.

In today’s smartphone- and security-camera-flooded world, even if ethics alone aren’t enough to convince you to do the right thing all the time, the fact that your actions could end up plastered all over the Internet should make you think twice.

Give up money, give up fame, give up science, give the earth itself and all it contains, rather than do an immoral act. And never suppose, that in any possible situation, or under any circumstances, it is best for you to do a dishonorable thing, however slightly so it may appear to you.

Whenever you are to do a thing, though it can never be known but to yourself, ask yourself how you would act were all the world looking at you, and act accordingly.

Encourage all your virtuous dispositions, and exercise them whenever an opportunity arises; being assured that they will gain strength by exercise, as a limb of the body does, and that exercise will make them habitual. From the practice of the purest virtue, you may be assured you will derive the most sublime comforts in every moment of life, and in the moment of death.

If ever you find yourself environed with difficulties and perplexing circumstances, out of which you are at a loss how to extricate yourself, do what is right, and be assured that that will extricate you the best out of the worst situations. Though you cannot see, when you take one step, what will be the next, yet follow truth, justice, and plain dealing, and never fear their leading you out of the labyrinth, in the easiest manner possible. The knot which you thought a Gordian one, will untie itself before you.

Nothing is so mistaken as the supposition, that a person is to extricate himself from a difficulty, by intrigue, by chicanery, by dissimulation, by trimming, by an untruth, by an injustice. This increases the difficulties ten fold; and those who pursue these methods, get themselves so involved at length, that they can turn no way but their infamy becomes more exposed.

It is of great importance to set a resolution, not to be shaken, never to tell an untruth. There is no vice so mean, so pitiful, so contemptible; and he who permits himself to tell a lie once, finds it much easier to do it a second and third time, till at length it becomes habitual; he tells lies without attending to it, and truths without the world’s believing him.

This falsehood of the tongue leads to that of the heart, and in time depraves all its good dispositions.

Thomas Jefferson. Letter to Peter Carr. Paris. August 19, 1785.