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by
Mark Manson
Read between
October 29 - December 16, 2020
Fame and success didn’t make him a better person.
Nor was it by becoming a better person that he became famous and successful.
Our culture today is obsessively focused on unrealistically positive expectations:
You learn about the best ways to make money because you feel you don’t have enough money already.
giving too many fucks is bad for your mental health.
It causes you to become overly attached to the superficial and fake, to dedicate your life to chasing a mirage of happiness and satisfaction.
The key to a good life is not giving...
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more; it’s giving a fuck about less, giving a fuck about only what is true and ...
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“I feel like shit, but who gives a fuck?”
“You will never be happy if you continue to search for what happiness consists of. You will never live if you are looking for the meaning of life.”
The pain you pursue in the gym results in better all-around health and energy.
The avoidance of suffering is a form of suffering. The avoidance of struggle is a struggle. The denial of failure is a failure. Hiding what is shameful is itself a form of shame.
You and everyone you know are going to be dead soon. And in the short amount of time between here and there, you have a limited amount of fucks to give. Very few, in fact. 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.
Subtlety #1: Not giving a fuck does not mean being indifferent; it means being comfortable with being different.
The point isn’t to get away from the shit. The point is to find the shit you enjoy dealing with.
Subtlety #2: To not give a fuck about adversity, you must first give a fuck about something more important than adversity.
The problem with people who hand out fucks like ice cream at a goddamn summer camp is that they don’t have anything more fuck-worthy to dedicate their fucks to.
It then follows that finding something important and meaningful in your life is perhaps the most productive use of your time and energy. Because if you don’t find that meaningful something, your fucks will be given to meaningless and frivolous causes.
Subtlety #3: Whether you realize it or not, you are always choosing what to give a fuck about.
Those people whose opinions we cared about so much before are no longer present in our lives.
Rejections that were painful in the moment have actually worked out for the best.
Maturity is what happens when one
learns to only give a fuck about what’s truly fuckworthy.
After all, the only way to overcome pain is to first learn how to bear it.
experiencing emotional or psychological pain can be healthy or necessary. Just like stubbing our toe teaches us to walk into fewer tables, the
emotional pain of rejection or failure teaches us how to avoid making the same mistakes in the future.
“Life is essentially an endless series of problems,
“The solution to one problem is merely the creation of the next one.”
“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.
Remember, nobody who is actually happy has to stand in front of a mirror and tell himself that he’s happy.
In other words, 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. Then, like everything else, the positive emotions go away, because more problems inevitably emerge.
The person you marry is the person you fight with. The house you buy is the house you repair. The dream job you take is the job you stress over. Everything comes with an inherent sacrifice—whatever makes us feel good will also inevitably make us feel bad. What we gain is also what we lose. What creates our positive experiences will define our negative experiences.
“What pain do you want in your life? What are you willing to struggle for?”
You can’t win if you don’t play.
The truth is, I thought I wanted something, but it turns out I didn’t. End of story.
I wanted the reward and not the struggle. I wanted the result and not the process. I was in love with not the fight but only the victory.
The true measurement of self-worth is not how a person feels about her positive experiences, but rather how she feels about her negative experiences.
But eventually reality must hit, and the underlying problems will once again make themselves clear. It’s just a question of when, and how painful it will be.
