Book: The Subtle Art Of Not Giving A Fuck.
Author: Mark Manson.
Introduction.
34 year old American blogger and entrepreneur, Mark Manson uses experience, plain honesty and profanity to create a best selling self help book. You'll probably never see another author with such a raw style of writing. From the title of the book, I'm sure you can already imagine the raw, yet awfully pleasant content it holds. This book however is not a recipe for extreme nonchalant and carefree behavior like the name might suggest, it is however a recipe for getting the best out of life by using our fucks wisely.
" You're going to die one day. And in the short amount of time between here and there, you have a limited amount of fucks to give. And if you go around giving a fuck about everything and everyone without conscious thought or choice, well then you're going to get fucked.
When you give a fuck about everyone and everything you will feel that you're perpetually entitled to be comfortable and happy at all times, that everything is supposed to be just exactly the fucking way you want it to be. This is a sickness".
Major Theme
LIFE
Lesson number one. Life is not a bed of roses. Never has been, never will be.
"Sometimes life sucks and the healthiest thing you can do is to admit it".
This book is a guide to living a happy life and the writer makes it clear what contributes to a happy life
"The key to a good life is not giving a fuck about more. It's giving a fuck about less... About only what is true and immediate and important".
The writer also expresses anger at the modern culture of believing that one should be happy at all times.
"Our culture today is obsessively focused on unrealistically positive expectations. Be happier. Be healthier. Be sexier... Fly your helicopter to your wonderfully fulfilling job where you spend your days doing incredibly meaningful work that's likely to save the planet one day".
He believes that this is a tool of the social media and modern psychology that feeds on our lack and makes us believe that if we so much as feel anything other than happy, then we are not worthy.
Sub themes
-Values.
"There are a handful of common values that create really poor problems for people. 1.pleasure. 2.Material success. 3.Always being right 4. Staying positive ".
The writer talks about good and bad values and explains how all our actions and reactions are based on our value system. He also differentiates between good and bad values stating that good values are reality based, socially constructive and controllable.
-Pain
Pain is an important part of a success story. It's safe to say that the author agrees with the maxim that says NO PAIN NO GAIN. The writers tone suggests that to live a pain-free life is to have no life at all.
"The avoidance of suffering is a form of suffering. The avoidance of struggle is a struggle. Hiding what is shameful is itself a form of shame".
The writer also believes that happiness comes from pain/Struggle. It is through the process of overcoming our challenges and struggles that we experience joy.
"One day, in retrospect, the years of struggle will strike you as the most beautiful".
-Death.
"Confronting the reality of our own mortality is important because it obliterates all the crappy, fragile, superficial values in life".
You know how when people come so close to death, they begin to appreciate life and all its beauty? The writer narrates how he intentionally came close to death by climbing on a cliff and when asked how he felt when he descended, he replied "I feel very alive".
We're all going to die. No one's going to escape it. And the sooner we accept the fragility of our lives, we would have less time for bad and unnecessary values.
10 Important Nuggets from The Book.
Not giving a fuck does not mean being indifferent; it means been comfortable with being different.
To not give a fuck about adversity, you must first give a fuck about something more important than adversity.
3.The pursuit of positive things is in itself a negative thing. The acceptance of negative things is in itself a positive thing. Go figure.
4.If you have to round up people who have suffered a tragic loss or battled a medical condition or generally suffered something terrible, you'd be rounding up everyone. There's nothing unique about your problems.
5.Choose your struggle. Nobody has it all.
6.Pain is part of the process. It is important to feel it. To deny it is to deny our own potential.
7.We are defined by what we chose to reject. And if we reject nothing, we essentially have no identity.
8.We don't always control what happens to us. But we always control how we interpret what happens to us as well as how we respond.
9.You're very fortunate if you started from the bottom because things can only get better. Even if things go bad, you'll only end up where you started, so why not try?
10.Evil people never believe that they are evil. Rather they believe everyone else is evil.
Personal Review.
First of all, shout out to my friend Ottah Osondu for recommending this book and giving it to me with the exact words 'This is one of the most influential books in my life". Having read the book, I can say that it's the same for me too. In my opinion, here are 9 type of people who must read this book.
- The self victimizer who thinks they have all the problems in the world.
- The grandiose who think they have no problems
- Those who are afraid of dying
- The person with a low self esteem
- Those who want to be successful
- Those who DON'T want to be successful
- Any person who loves a good book
- Anyone with a sense of humor
I hope you get my point, but just in case you didn't .EVERYBODY SHOULD READ THIS BOOK! And when you're done reading, how about you close your eyes and thank the creator for a mind like Mark's. I did.
My favorite part of the book is where he sheds light on what he terms the "Victimhood Chic". It is a situation where every single person in the world feels like they are being oppressed in some way (see article 'Depressed is the new cool '). Through racism, cultural appropriation, sexism, body shaming, homophobia, religion, animal rights... The list is endless.
This attitude, perpetuated by the internet and social media, allows us to avoid responsibility by blaming others. You don't like a textbook because you think it's racist? The school is to blame for how you feel and you're being victimized . You don't like the lyrics of a song, the artist is to blame for offending you. A month ago, a young lady shot 3 people at YouTube building because she wasn't getting enough views on her channel and "YouTube was to blame".The writer points out that while people might be blamed for things that happen to you, you and only you are responsible for how you perceive it and how you react.
Mark points out that the problem with the victimhood chic is that it sucks attention away from the actual victims; after all everyone is claiming to have a problem. Besides conflict is the side dish of living in a liberal society.
Part of living in a democratic and free society is that we all have to deal with views and people we don't necessarily like.
Before this, I had only ever done one book review on The Joys of Motherhood and I'd put off doing a review on any book that wasn't fiction even though I read non-fiction more. I was scared of how you all would react to it and I doubted I could do a good one. Then Mark Manson came along and confronted me with this
"The real question is what are you choosing to give a fuck about?"
I advise you keep reading.
In the last chapter of this book lies the most therapeutic and logical paragraph ever written and in the spirit of the weekend, I'd let you have it .
"You are great. Already. Whether you realize it or not.Whether anybody else realized or not. And it's not because you launched an iPhone App or finished school a year early or bought yourself a sweet as boat. These things don't define greatness. You are already great because in the face of endless confusion and certain death, you continue to choose what to give a fuck about and what not to. This mere fact. This simple optioning for your own values in life, already makes you beautiful, already makes you successful and already makes you loved. Even if you don't realize it. Even if you're sleeping in a gutter and starving. You are going to die and that is because you too were fortunate enough to have lived".
Have you read the book? Do you agree with the Writers perspective? Can you hook me up on a coffee date with Mark? Let me know in the comments below. Xoxo
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