The Subtle Art of Not Giving a F*ck: A Counterintuitive Approach to Living a Good Life

by Mark Manson

Many people become so obsessed with being “right” about their life that they never end up actually living it. A certain woman is single and lonely and wants a partner, but she never gets out of the house and does anything about it. A certain man works his ass off and believes he deserves a promotion, but he never explicitly says that to his boss. They’re told that they’re afraid of failure, of rejection, of someone saying no. But that’s not it. Sure, rejection hurts. Failure sucks. But there are particular certainties that we hold on to—certainties that we’re afraid to question or let go of, values that have given our lives meaning over the years. That woman doesn’t get out there and date because she would be forced to confront her beliefs about her own desirability. That man doesn’t ask for the promotion because he would have to confront his beliefs about what his skills are actually worth. It’s easier to sit in a painful certainty that nobody would find you attractive, that nobody appreciates your talents, than to actually test those beliefs and find out for sure. Beliefs of this sort—that I’m not attractive enough, so why bother; or that my boss is an asshole, so why bother—are designed to give us moderate comfort now by mortgaging greater happiness and success later on. They’re terrible long-term strategies, yet we cling to them because we assume we’re right, because we assume we already know what’s supposed to happen. In other words, we assume we know how the story en...