More on this book
Community
Kindle Notes & Highlights
by
Mark Manson
life itself is a form of suffering. The rich suffer because of their riches. The poor suffer because of their poverty.
Some suffering is certainly more painful than other suffering. But we all must suffer nonetheless.
pain and loss are inevitable and we should let go of trying to resist them.
Dissatisfaction and unease are inherent parts of human nature and, as we’ll see, necessary components to creating consistent happiness.
the greatest truths in life are usually the most unpleasant to hear.
We suffer for the simple reason that suffering is biologically useful. It is nature’s preferred agent for inspiring change.
it’s the mildly dissatisfied and insecure creature that’s going to do the most work to innovate and survive.
We are wired to become dissatisfied with whatever we have and satisfied by only what we do not have.
Pain is what teaches us what to pay attention to when we’re young or careless.
this is what’s so dangerous about a society that coddles itself more and more from the inevitable discomforts of life: we lose the benefits of experiencing healthy doses of pain, a loss that disconnects us from the reality of the world around us.
“Don’t hope for a life without problems,” the panda said. “There’s no such thing. Instead, hope for a life full of good problems.”
Problems never stop; they merely get exchanged and/or upgraded. Happiness comes from solving problems. The keyword here is “solving.” If you’re avoiding your problems or feel like you don’t have any problems, then you’re going to make yourself miserable.
To be happy we need something to solve. Happiness is therefore a form of action; it’s an activity, not something that is passively bestowed upon you,
True happiness occurs only when you find the problems you enjoy having and enjoy solving.
People deny and blame others for their problems for the simple reason that it’s easy and feels good, while solving problems is hard and often feels bad.
highs are shallow and unproductive ways to go about one’s life.
Highs also generate addiction. The more you rely on them to feel better about your underlying problems, the more you will seek them out.
negative emotions are a call to action. When you feel them, it’s because you’re supposed to do something.
Positive emotions, on the other hand, are rewards for taking the proper action. When you feel them, life seems simple and there is nothing else to do but enjoy it.
Just because something feels good doesn’t mean it is good. Just because something feels bad doesn’t mean it is bad. Emotions are merely signposts, suggestions
to deny one’s negative emotions is to deny many of the feedback mechanisms that help a person solve problems.
emotions never last. Whatever makes us happy today will no longer make us happy tomorrow,
“hedonic treadmill”: the idea that we’re always working hard to change our life situation, but we actually never feel very different.
Everything comes with an inherent sacrifice—whatever makes us feel good will also inevitably make us feel bad.
A more interesting question, a question that most people never consider, is, “What pain do you want in your life? What are you willing to struggle for?” Because that seems to be a greater determinant of how our lives turn out.
happiness requires struggle. It grows from problems.
You can’t win if you don’t play.
The more interesting question is the pain. What is the pain that you want to sustain?
our struggles determine our successes. Our problems birth our happiness, along with slightly better, slightly upgraded problems. See: it’s a never-ending upward spiral. And if you think at any point you’re allowed to stop climbing, I’m afraid you’re missing the point. Because the joy is in the climb itself.
adversity and failure are actually useful and even necessary for developing strong-minded and successful adults.
a true and accurate measurement of one’s self-worth is how people feel about the negative aspects of themselves.
Entitled people exude a delusional degree of self-confidence.
the problem with entitlement is that it makes people need to feel good about themselves all the time, even at the expense of those around them. And because entitled people always need to feel good about themselves, they end up spending most of their time thinking about themselves.
People who feel entitled view every occurrence in their life as either an affirmation of, or a threat to, their own greatness. If something good happens to them, it’s because of some amazing feat they accomplished. If something bad happens to them, it’s because somebody is jealous and trying to bring them down a notch.
entitlement is a failed strategy. It’s just another high. It’s not happiness.
A person who actually has a high self-worth is able to look at the negative parts of his character frankly—“Yes, sometimes I’m irresponsible with money,” “Yes, sometimes I exaggerate my own successes,” “Yes, I rely too much on others to support me and should be more self-reliant”—and then acts to improve upon them.
this assumed inability to solve our problems causes us to feel miserable and helpless.
If we have problems that are unsolvable, our unconscious figures that we’re either uniquely special or uniquely defective in some way. That we’re somehow unlike everyone else and that the rules must be different for us. Put simply: we become entitled.
The truth is that there’s no such thing as a personal problem. If you’ve got a problem, chances are millions of other people have had it in the past, have it now, and are going to have it in the future. Likely people you know too. That doesn’t minimize the problem or mean that it shouldn’t hurt. It doesn’t mean you aren’t legitimately a victim in some circumstances. It just means that you’re not special.
The more freedom we’re given to express ourselves, the more we want to be free of having to deal with anyone who may disagree with us or upset us. The more exposed we are to opposing viewpoints, the more we seem to get upset that those other viewpoints exist. The easier and more problem-free our lives become, the more we seem to feel entitled for them to get even better.
Perhaps these same technologies that have liberated and educated so many are simultaneously enabling people’s sense of entitlement more than ever before.
Our lives today are filled with information from the extremes of the bell curve of human experience,
The vast majority of life is unextraordinary, indeed quite average.
the pervasiveness of technology and mass marketing is screwing up a lot of people’s expectations for themselves. The inundation of the exceptional makes people feel worse about themselves, makes them feel that they need to be more extreme, more radical, and more self-assured to get noticed or even matter.
The Internet has not just open-sourced information; it has also open-sourced insecurity, self-doubt, and shame.
The rare people who do become truly exceptional at something do so not because they believe they’re exceptional. On the contrary, they become amazing because they’re obsessed with improvement. And that obsession with improvement stems from an unerring belief that they are, in fact, not that great at all. It’s anti-entitlement.
the knowledge and acceptance of your own mundane existence will actually free you to accomplish what you truly wish to accomplish, without judgment or lofty expectations.
If suffering is inevitable, if our problems in life are unavoidable, then the question we should be asking is not “How do I stop suffering?” but “Why am I suffering—for what purpose?”
Self-awareness is like an onion. There are multiple layers to it, and the more you peel them back, the more likely you’re going to start crying at inappropriate times.
the first layer of the self-awareness onion is a simple understanding of one’s emotions.
