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Kindle Notes & Highlights
by
Mark Manson
Read between
February 10 - February 10, 2023
on what you perceive your personal shortcomings and failures to already be, and then emphasizes them for you.
You stand in front of the mirror and repeat affirmations saying that you’re beautiful because you feel as though you’re not beautiful already. You follow dating and relationship advice because you feel that you’re unlovable already.
You try goofy visualization exercises about being more successful because you feel as though you aren’t successful enough already.
only serves to remind us over and over again of what we are not, of what we lack, of what we should have been but failed to be.
A rich woman doesn’t feel a need to convince anybody that she’s rich.
And while there’s nothing wrong with good business, the problem is that giving too many fucks is bad for your mental health.
it’s giving a fuck about less,
anxious about being anxious.
Or you’re so worried about doing the right thing all the time that you become worried about how much you’re worrying.
Welcome to the Feedback Loop from Hell.
The Feedback Loop from Hell has become a borderline epidemic, making many of us overly stressed, overly neurotic, and overly self-loathing.
world. And it’s going to save it by accepting that the world is totally fucked and that’s all right, because it’s always been that way, and always will be.
“I feel like shit, but who gives a fuck?” And then, as if sprinkled by magic fuck-giving fairy dust, you stop hating yourself for feeling so bad.
Because there’s an infinite amount of things we can now see or know, there are also an infinite number of ways we can discover that we don’t measure up, that we’re not good enough, that things aren’t as great as they could be. And this rips us apart inside.
The desire for more positive experience is itself a negative experience. And, paradoxically, the acceptance of one’s negative experience is itself a positive experience.
“the backwards law”—the
“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.”
Being open with your insecurities paradoxically makes you more confident and charismatic around others. The pain of honest confrontation is what generates the greatest trust and respect in your relationships. Suffering through your fears
and anxieties is what allows you to build courage and perseverance.
point. Everything worthwhile in life is won through surmounting the associated negative experience.
And in the short amount of time between here and there, you have a limited amount of fucks to give.
subtle art to not giving a fuck.
Subtlety #1: Not giving a fuck does not mean being indifferent; it means being comfortable with being different.
Indifferent people are afraid of the world and the repercussions of their own choices. That’s why they don’t make any meaningful choices.
There’s no such thing as not giving a fuck. You must give a fuck about something.
“Damn, watch out, Mark Manson just don’t give a fuck,” we don’t mean that Mark Manson doesn’t care about anything;
They say, “Fuck it,” not to everything in life, but rather to everything unimportant in life. They reserve their fucks for what truly matters. Friends. Family. Purpose.
Subtlety #2: To not give a fuck about adversity, you must first give a fuck about something more important than adversity.
Subtlety #3: Whether you realize it or not, you are always choosing what to give a fuck about.
most of these sorts of things have little lasting impact on our lives. Those people whose opinions we cared about so much before are no longer present in our lives.
Life goes on. We now reserve our ever-dwindling fucks for the most truly fuck-worthy parts of our lives: our families, our best friends, our golf swing. And, to our astonishment, this is enough.
which drives us to all sorts of overcompensation, like buying forty pairs of shoes
life itself is a form of suffering. The rich suffer because of their riches. The poor suffer because of their poverty.
Happiness is not a solvable equation. Dissatisfaction and unease are inherent parts of human nature and, as we’ll see, necessary components to creating consistent happiness.
After all, the greatest truths in life are usually the most unpleasant to hear.
It is nature’s preferred agent for inspiring change.
Pain is what teaches us what to pay attention to when we’re young or careless.
pain. So when I tell you that my first girlfriend cheating on me and leaving me felt like having an ice pick slowly inserted into the center of my heart, that’s because, well, it hurt so much I might as well have had an ice pick slowly inserted into the center of my heart.
When you solve your problem of not spending enough time with your partner by designating Wednesday night “date night,” you generate new problems, such as figuring out what to do every Wednesday that you both won’t hate, making sure you have enough money for nice dinners, rediscovering the chemistry and spark you two feel you’ve lost, and unraveling the logistics of fucking in a small bathtub filled with too many bubbles.
True happiness occurs only when you find the problems you enjoy having and enjoy solving.
they must constantly delude or distract themselves from reality.
Remember, nobody who is actually happy has to stand in front of a mirror and tell himself that he’s happy.
They’re feedback mechanisms telling us that something is either likely right or likely wrong for us—nothing more, nothing less.
Emotions are simply biological signals designed to nudge you in the direction of beneficial change.
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.
Psychologists sometimes refer to this concept as the “hedonic treadmill”: the idea that we’re always working hard to change our life situation, but we actually never feel very different.
“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.
People want to start their own business. But you don’t end up a successful entrepreneur unless you find a way to appreciate the risk, the uncertainty, the repeated failures, the insane hours devoted to something that may earn absolutely nothing.
