Mark Manson's Blog, page 19
February 11, 2016
An Open Letter To Brazil
(Clique aqui para a versão em português)
Dear Brazil,
Carnaval is over. The “real” new year is finally beginning. And tomorrow, I will be leaving, returning to my country.
Like most gringos, I originally came to Brazil for the parties, the beaches, and the girls. Little did I know that I would spend the majority of the next four years within your borders. I would learn a lot about your culture, your language, your customs, and by the end of this year, I will marry one of your girls.
It’s no secre...
January 28, 2016
5 Massive Books That Are Worth Your Time
I love massive books. Books so big, like bricks, you could drown yourself in a pool with them if you’re not careful. It’s not a healthy love, I’ll admit. It’s more like Stockholm Syndrome. Like a kidnapping victim who falls in love with his captor, these books capture and sequester my mind for so long that I begin to feel deluded that I love them more than anything else in the world.
When most people go on beach trips, they buy some trashy mystery or romance novel in the airport. Me? I cart K...
January 7, 2016
Your Goals Are Overrated
It’s the new year and let’s pretend for a moment that you have decided that you want to become rich. Maybe you’re sick of your student loan debt. Maybe you’re sick of eating frozen waffles for dinner every night. Maybe you recently became overwhelmingly inspired by your favorite rapper, 50 Cent, and like him, you also want to ‘Get Rich or Die Trying’ …and then go bankrupt a few years later.
Whatever the reasoning is, it’s the new year and you’ve decided that the new you is going to be a Rolls...
December 17, 2015
Shut Up and Be Patient
Remember that part in the movie Titanic where those two guys are shivering in the middle of the night and they see the iceberg and they freak out and call the lieutenant and yell, “OMG, iceberg, dead ahead!” and the lieutenant freaks out and swings the steering wheel all the way to one side and then screams on the phone-like thing to the engine room for those lazy fuckheads to put the whole damn ship in reverse, like right this second, and then there’s all these smelly Irish guys screaming an...
November 23, 2015
Why I Have a Potty Mouth
“Clean your language. Be a role model. You should use better words than f***. You may have a good message but the words you use are no good!”
“Someone sent me your post on ‘Finding your passion.’ It was good, but it was presented in a rather disrespectful way. Please cut out the bathroom language, and maybe you’ll get more ‘likes.'”
“Do you have to use such horrible language? Expand your vocabulary! You could be a good writer if you cleaned up your act.”
When I started blogging in 2007, I simpl...
October 22, 2015
Screw Finding Your Passion
Remember back when you were a kid? You would just do things. You never thought to yourself, “What are the relative merits of learning baseball versus football?” You just ran around the playground and played baseball and football. You built sand castles and played tag and asked silly questions and looked for bugs and dug up grass and pretended you were a sewer monster.
Nobody told you to do it, you just did it. You were led merely by your curiosity and excitement.
And the beautiful thing was, i...
September 17, 2015
Romance Is Like Alcohol
Romance is like alcohol. It can heal and it can hurt. It can create joy and it can create pain. It’s often responsible for some of the best and some of the worst moments of your life. It can obscure a terrible idea into a brilliant one; it can distort a terrible person into a fate-filled lover.
Romance is like alcohol. It invents emotions out of thin air. It can create a mirage of love; it can intoxicate us with an imagined happiness. It can generate anger and jealousy where none is deserved....
August 20, 2015
The Solution to All of Your Life’s Problems
Do you struggle to find meaning in your life? Are you overworked and constantly broke? Do you wish you had better relationships with less conflict and more genuine love and intimacy?
What if I told you that you could solve all of your life’s problems and live a life full of abundance and freedom while surrounded by adoring friends and loved ones? What if I told you it was easy and you could even get started right now? Does that sound too good to be true?
Well, it’s not. In fact, it’s simple, a...
August 6, 2015
How to Survive a Long Distance Relationship
Long distance relationships are the worst. “Is he/she worth waiting for? Are they feeling the same way I do?” “Am I kidding myself thinking this can work?” “Would I be better off dating the mailman instead? At least he comes to my house every day.” “Does my girlfriend even exist or is this just a Nigerian guy conducting an elaborate credit card scam?”
I get it. I’ve been there. Long distance relationships suck. There’s no way around it. In all of my years I’ve never met someone who has said,...
July 20, 2015
5 Things That Should Be Taught in Every School
Let’s be honest: our education system is fucked.
I mean, almost all of the important history I learned between grades 5 and 12 I could probably find on Wikipedia and understand within a few weeks now. And pretty much any scientific knowledge you could ever want to learn is explained with pretty videos on YouTube. On top of that, you have the most unstable job market in almost 100 years, technology developing so rapidly that robots will be doing half the work in another decade, college degrees...
