This is a
chapter-by-chapter summary of a book by Mark Manson’s The Subtle Art of Not Giving A F*ck (2016) series. One chapter,
one article. Read this summary, buy the book. Enjoy!
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“Everything worthwhile in life is won through
surmounting the associated negative experience”
(Mark Manson)
The author introduce his
book with the story of a man who, for the majority of his life, was a complete
failure and a loser. Eventually, this man – Charles Bukowski – found success in
his writing career. But that didn’t really make him much less of a loser-like
behaviours that had become a habit for much of his adult life – getting drunk
every night, spending his time with prostitutes, and exposing himself in
public, just to name a few.
Interestingly enough, when
Bukowski died, the epitaph engraved on his tombstone said: “Don’t
Try.” This advice and Bukowski’s story, completely flies in the face of
the thousands of books, movies and seminars that all preach that if you don’t
give up, you can overcome your shortcomings and become great. But Manson tells
us that this supposedly positive self-help advice is actually contributing to
your unhappiness because it highlights everything that you lack, essentially
saying that in order to improve, you have to feel really bad about yourself
first.
Manson insists that the
conventional “think positive”
approach teaches us that we need to give a fuck about too many things – nice cars,
perfect bodies, the biggest house, the most attractive family, etc. And every
day we are bombarded with images from our TV and smartphone screens that show
us other people that have these kinds of amazing lives. We begin to believe
that feeling anxious or sad or unsatisfied is simply unacceptable at all times,
which makes us feel even worse for feeling these emotions.
So Manson has an
alternative theory. Since the desire for a better life actually has a negative
effect on our emotions, we should instead accept the negative aspects of our life.
Doing this will lead to a more positive experience, because as soon as we stop
fearing the pain of our negative experiences, we are able to truly challenge
ourselves without allowing anything to hold us back. Don’t try to achieve
happiness by escaping the negative aspects of your life, but rather by
embracing them. “To not give a fuck is to stare down life’s most terrifying and
difficult challenges and still take actions.”
Manson is quick to clarify
that he does not mean that a person should be indifferent to everything in life
– those kinds of people are known as psychopaths. Rather than being
indifferent, we should learn how to be comfortable with being different. This means
not caring what someone thinks of our outfit or our choice of career – standing
by our choices in the face of adversity. And to stare down adversity, we must
first learn how to care about something bigger than adversity – rising above
the trivial annoyances of our lives in order to find a problem worth “giving a fuck about.” And we do control
what we give a fuck (care a lot) about.
Bottom line? You have the
choice to care or not to care about the things that happen in your life. So you
need to choose to care about something that’s really and truly important. Manson
writes, “Choose to give a fuck only about the things that are truly important.”
Don’t Give A
F*ck!
One of the most confusing books I have ever read but today I got cleared tq you
ReplyDeleteYou are welcome. I'm glad it helped you sir Ravi
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