I recently completed reading Mark Manson’s latest book called, The Subtle Art of Not Giving a F*ck. I’ve never read a book twice but, this will be the first. I highlighted / underlined / took notes throughout the book and would just like to share some of the thoughts Mark provided. It is a fantastic book and will truly make you re-think every situation that comes up in your life. I think my favorite aspect of the book is the fact that he really tries to look at every possible reaction to a situation and how we interpret it. They is plenty more to this book but these are the particular sentences / passages that stood out to me. Anyways, go pick it up and read it!
Self-Awareness Onion — How am I choosing to measure myself? By what standard am I judging myself and everyone around me? Because our values determine the nature of our problems, and the nature of our problems determines the quality of our lives.
Problems may be inevitable, but the meaning of each problem is not. We get to control what our problems mean based on how we choose to think about them, the standard by which we choose to measure them. Our values determine the metrics by which we measure ourselves and everyone else.
If you want to change how you see your problems, you have to change what you value and/or how you measure failure/success.
Shitty Values — Always being right — People who base their self-worth on being right about everything prevent themselves from learning from their mistakes. They lack the ability to take on new perspectives and empathize with others. They close themselves off to new and important information.
It’s far more helpful to assume that you’re ignorant and don’t know a whole lot. This keeps you unattached to superstitious or poorly informed beliefs and promotes a constant state of learning and growth.
When we force ourselves to stay positive at all times, we deny the existence of our life’s problems. Thus, to duck our problems is to lead a meaningless (even if supposedly pleasant) existence. As Freud once said, “One day, in retrospect, the years of struggle will strike you as the most beautiful.”
But when we choose better values, we are able to divert our fucks to something better — toward things that matter, things that improve the state of our well-being and that generate happiness, pleasure, and success as side effects. Because when you give better fucks, you get better problems. And when you get better problems, you get a better life.
There is a simple realization from which all personal improvement and growth emerges. This is the realization that we, individually, are responsible for everything in our lives, no matter the external circumstances. 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.
Fault is past tense. Responsibility is present tense. Fault results from choices that have already been made. Responsibility results from the choices you’re currently making, every second of every day.
I see life in the same terms. We all get dealt cards. Some of us get better cards than others. And while it’s easy to get hung up on our cards, and feel we got screwed over, the game lies in the choices we make with those cards, the risks we decide to take, and the consequences we choose to live with.
Victimhood Chic — In fact, this may be the first time in human history that every single demographic group has felt unfairly victimized simultaneously. And they’re all riding the highs of the moral indignation that comes along with it. Right now, anyone who is offended about anything — feels as though they’re being oppressed in some way and therefor deserve to be outraged and to have a certain amount of attention. This is referred to as “outrage porn” — this triggers a kind of echo of bullshit pinging back and forth between two imaginary sides, meanwhile distracting everyone from real societal problems. Being self-righteous and morally superior feels good.
Certainty is the enemy of growth. Instead of striving for certainty, we should be in constant search of doubt: doubt about our own beliefs, doubt about our own feelings, doubt about what the future may hold for us unless we get out there and create it for ourselves. Instead of looking to be right all the time, we should be looking for how we’re wrong all the time. Because we are.
Our mind’s biggest priority when processing experiences is to interpret them in such a way that they will cohere with all of our previous experiences, feelings, and beliefs.
If we’re all wrong, all the time, then isn’t self-skepticism and the rigorous challenging of our own beliefs and assumptions the only logical route to progress? Uncertainty is the root of all progress and all growth.
The more something threatens your identity, the more you will avoid it.
It is the mark of an educated mind to be able to entertain a thought without accepting it.
If it feels like it’s you versus the world, chances are it’s really just you versus yourself.
Just as one must suffer physical pain to build stronger bone and muscle, one must suffer emotional pain to develop greater emotional resilience, a stronger sense of self, increased compassion, and a generally happier life.
The problem was that my emotions defined my reality, because I failed to separate what I felt from what was.
Life is about not knowing and then doing something anyway. Action isn’t just the effect of motivation; it’s also the cause of it.
If we follow the “do something” principle, failure feels unimportant. When inspiration is seen as a reward rather than a prerequisite — we propel ourselves ahead. We feel free to fail, and that failure moves us forward.
In the free West, my Russian teacher continued, there existed an abundance of economic opportunity — so much economic opportunity that it became far more valuable to present yourself in a certain way, even if it was false, than to actually be that way. Trust lost its value. Appearances and salesmanship became more advantageous forms of expression. Knowing a lot of people superficially was more beneficial than knowing a few people closely.
But more is not always better. In fact, the opposite is true. We are actually often happier with less. When we’re overloaded with opportunities and options, we suffer from what psychologists refer to as the paradox of choice. (FOMO for you millennials) Basically, the more options we’re given, the less satisfied we become with whatever we choose, because we’re aware of all the other options we’re potentially forfeiting.
When I came to the realization that if there really is no reason to do anything, then there is also no reason to not do anything.
The pampering of the modern mind has resulted in a population that feels deserving of something without earning that something, a population that feels they have a right to something without sacrificing for it. People declare themselves experts, entrepreneurs, inventors, innovators, mavericks, and coaches without any real-life experience. And they do this not because they actually think the are greater than everybody else; they do it because they feel that they need to be great to be accepted in a world that broadcasts only the extraordinary.
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