You're doing it wrong. That's the hard truth at the core of this book. “Smile more.” “Hustle harder.” “Be grateful.” Yeah, how about you shut up with these stupid positivity commands? The self-help books telling you to just "think happy thoughts" and life will be rainbows and unicorns? Dump them! Mark Manson's "The Subtle Art of Not Giving a F*ck" is here to slap you in the face with a refreshing dose of real talk.This book doesn't coddle you -...
Accept That Life Will Get Difficult
Let’s get one thing clear first. Thinking you can achieve some permanent state of happiness by checking off certain boxes like a good job, hot spouse, and beach house is stupid. The Buddha figured this out ages ago under his tree: no matter how comfy your situation, you're still going to stub your toe, get your heart broken, and deal with general shit storms. And you know what? That's not necessarily a bad thing. Accepting that life can be a...
Get Over Yourself
This one is for all our delusional dearies out there. See, we've got a whole sea of people riding the high of unearned self-confidence. Like Manson’s acquaintance, who he thankfully does not name. This “Jimmy” is always yapping about their genius business ideas when in reality, they're just living off mommy daddy's trust fund, not actually accomplishing a thing.And we’re all just a teensy bit like Jimmy. You can thank your parents, reel life, and every sixth-place trophy you got...
Your Values Determine Your Problems
We’ll get straight to it! Most people delude themselves about their true motivations. Peeling back the emotional layers is hard, but you've gotta peel this self-awareness onion, as Manson calls it. You've got to question why you feel what you feel. And after that? Addressing the bad values behind ’em. Because you sad souls are chasing the wrong values in life. The worst part? These values determine the kinds of problems you have. If you value being richer than your...
Quit Your Victimhood Pity Party
Remember the first section? Life will get difficult. People die, you get dumped or fired, or maybe you were just the lucky bear with not-so-awesome genetics from the start. But being a professional victim helps nobody, least of all your own self. These days, everyone's on the "woe is me" train, whining about how oppressed they are over the pettiest issues. Getting enraged over a comedian's edgy joke and demanding they be "cancelled". Throwing a triggered tantrum because a book...
Stop Clinging to Your “Identity”
The next step in getting your life together is to confront certainty. How? Through uncertainty i.e. the acceptance of your own ignorance and the constant cultivation of doubt in your own beliefs. What do we mean by that? Our brains are wired to create meaning and stubbornly hold onto beliefs, even blatantly inaccurate ones. We will literally invent fictional pasts to maintain our existing beliefs. Most of us are so, so committed to these made-up self-images, that we actively avoid...
Quit Stalling and Just Do It Already!!
The third value is failure and the willingness to discover your own flaws and mistakes. And improve them. Basically, stop being a slob and take some action. Failure is not something we ever want to face. And yet! We do, right? So, let’s make it a ‘backward’ good value. Introducing Manson’s The Failure/Success Paradox. Which goes something like this: success comes from repeated failures and the ability to learn from them. You just can’t get good at something by constantly...
The Importance of No
In case you haven’t noticed yet, this book is totally against all the nonsense about being relentlessly positive and accepting of everything that comes our way. The whole "just go with the flow" nonsense is not accepted here. Instead, you get to say no to FOMO!Growth requires rejection - the ability to firmly say "no" to things that don't align with your values, and equally important, to accept rejection from others when warranted. Without this boundary-setting, you just end up...
Stare Death in the Face
Ever gotten stuck in an earthquake? An accident? Anything where you almost felt like “This is it! I’m gonna die”? In that moment, did you really care if the Karen next door approves of you? Of course, not! That’s not what’s important. Nothing is! Unfortunately, it takes a literal encounter with death to realize that. And that’s why, our last value is this: deliberately contemplate your own mortality. Heard of Ernest Becker? Among other things, he’s the author of “The...
Chapter 11
Details coming soon.
Summary
Okay, we've covered a lot of ground. From accepting that life's a dumpster fire, to killing off your delusional self-identities and quitting the victimhood pity party. We stripped away bad values polluting your mind and replaced them with counterintuitive good values like responsibility, uncertainty, and embracing failure. Now what? Are you still gonna ignore all this and keep sleepwalking through an inauthentic existence or are you ready to wake the up? It won't be pretty or comfortable, but it will...
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About the Author
I am the #1 NY Times Bestselling author of The Subtle Art of Not Giving a F*ck and Everything Is F*cked: A Book About Hope. I write life advice that is science-based, pragmatic, and non-bullshitty—a.k.a., life advice that doesn’t suck. Some people say I’m an idiot. Other people say I saved their life.
More on: https://markmanson.net/
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