The way I interpret "go to its lair before it goes to your village" is that you must confront life's challenges head-on, not hide out and hope nothing bad will happen. There's no point hiding out in your village or comfort zone, pretending the problems won't come. They will. Bad things happen to all of us. It's a philosophy that views struggles as inevitable. His message is that the only hope we have to surmount them (the dragon) is to expect them, be prepared and be brave. If we just bury our heads in the sand and seek the comfort of the familiar, for example, we won't be ready when, inevitably, a challenge presents itself.

Thanks for reminding me of Jordan Peterson's simple yet timeless guidance. His family has faced some terrible health problems in the last year so he hasn't been lecturing as much, but all the work he did and the wisdom it contains is available to everyone.

I interpret it differently (sort of), perhaps I believe that he's refering to the fact that there are some grim things inside us, or around us, that could very well kill, destroy, depress, disbalance us and we can't ignore them.

If you know there's something that's not working well, or not good for you, then you MUST adrees it. You gotta go face it, and defeat it, before it destroys you.

On the other hand I do believe there's something about facing the dragon that's interesting. I think that often times when you are facing difficult situations it seems like you are not good, or strong enough to bare it. But if you are brave enough to go face the dragon, and if you insist, and strive, then sometimes you are actually able to defeat it. (As if in the dragon's lair you found some mythical sword that helped you defeat it,)

And if I had to face a dragon, depending on its size, I would use bow and arrow, and try to pierce on of its eyes (and hopefully his brain ) with one of my arrows :)

My plan to slay the dragon:

Burn all vegetation surrounding the dragon so it gets hungry, leave only one route for it to walk out. On that path you leave some food, below the food is a giant pit with spikes at the bottom. Dragon falls in and is dead. Now it does not matter if he can fly or not. But all the best laid plans always go wrong. Because if the dragon is a meat eater, then stray animals may wander over the burnt out area for the dragon to feed upon. Now you have to go back to the pit like a suspect going back to the scene of the crime and then you fall into your own deadly pit, caught by your own trap of your making.

It does mean to face your fears and opponents head on to tackle challenges and not to procrastinate.

@Guyomar I need to read more about his work. He is indeed full of wisdom. Thanks for the interpretation.

Struggles in life are definitely inevitable and sometimes even with it's absence one must never be complacent.

I read another interpretation a little bit similar to yours. A person suggested that we must create challenges even when it is absent, so that when challenges come, we are prepared.

The two key words in your comment is to be prepared and be brave.

I'd say, more often than not, the dragon of European mythology is a symbol of the monsters inside us. That's precisely why they lurk in deep, dark places; these are symbols of our subconscious, the scary parts of our minds that are not directly accessible or intelligible to our conscious selves.

A couple of examples:

Beowulf's dragon only emerges from its peaceful slumber and goes on the rampage when a slave steals some of its treasure. A relatively minor misdeed (theft) triggers an excessive reaction (a dragon lays waste to a kingdom). So it often goes in human nature; a seemingly minor event triggers an extreme response from the inner dragons (we often speak of inner demons, instead) of our subconscious. And if we don't slay our own dragons, someone else will.

Saint George's dragon lives in a pond, and begins its reign of terror by poisoning the land, threatening to cause famine. To prevent this, the locals begin offering sacrifices to the dragon: first animals, then a mixture of humans and animals, then their own children, and finally the king's own daughter. The people's poor solution to the problem only causes it to escalate; it's only solved when Saint George arrives by chance and slays the dragon. The moral is to be bold and face the problem directly, rather than to be enslaved by it. The main problem in this story isn't the dragon itself, but the people's response to it; trying to deal with an acute problem (a land-poisoning dragon in the pond) by introducing a chronic one (ritual human sacrifice, enslavement to the dragon's appetite).

Anyway: how would I battle a literal dragon? In our modern era, I'd just call the police and hide.