The Life-Changing Magic of Not Giving a F*ck: How to Stop Spending Time You Don't Have with People You Don't Like Doing Things You Don't Want to Do (A No F*cks Given Guide Book 1)

by Sarah Knight

And if your difference of opinion with a friend reflects a difference in core values,

invoke the concept of opinions and leave it at that.

“I know, I know, everybody has an opinion!” Then change the subject to neutral territory,

try to make it about a difference of opinion,

maximize your potential for happiness, you need to consider outcomes before committing to giving your fucks.

They won’t be swayed by honesty or politeness. These people are begging for confrontation. IT’S LIKE THEY WANT THEIR FEELINGS HURT.

The life-changing magic of not giving a fuck is all about prioritizing. Joy over annoy. Choice over obligation. Opinions vs. feelings. Sticking to a budget. Eyes on the prize.

• In order to do that, consider their opinions separately from their feelings.

Now consult your Fuck Budget: What is that fuck worth to you? Can you afford it?

Step 1 begins with taking inventory of your mental space so you can sort all the fucks being demanded of you into those that annoy and those that bring joy. Then you can decide to give or not give them accordingly.

As Albert Einstein once said, “If I had an hour to solve a problem I’d spend 55 minutes thinking about the problem and 5 minutes thinking about solutions.”

In service to the NotSorry Method, I have devised Four Categories of Potential Fuck-Giving: Things Work Friends, Acquaintances, and Strangers Family

I can tell you that starting with Family spells doom. I mean, Family is a fucking minefield.

sense of obligation when it comes to family, which supersedes even feelings and opinions.

Things category deals with inanimate objects and concepts, neither of which possesses the irksome feelings and opinions of your fellow human beings.

not only annoying, but are also things I can’t control. Therefore, I should give my fucks to the former two and get ready to sweep the

The two most common reasons you give too many fucks when it comes to work are:

(with whom you spend the majority of your day). This is all perfectly understandable on the surface, but have you ever really stopped to consider: 1. How hard it is to actually get fired if you’re doing a decent job? 2. How little you really care, deep down, whether Gail from Marketing thinks fondly of you? Fuck Gail and her Save the Polar Bears half-marathon fund-raising drive, am I right? (But more on Gail later.) For now, remember that you should only give a fuck about things you can control, and no fucks about things you can’t.

(Better yet, if you have one of those e-calendars that’s viewable to everyone in the office, just start marking entire days “busy” so nobody can schedule a meeting with you.)

They are worse than meetings. They are the perfect storm of nonproductivity:

Conference calls AND CHAT ROOMS.

Being liked and being respected are not necessarily the same thing. For one, it’s a lot easier to keep your job if you are respected rather than merely liked.

Because you can’t control whether or not people like you.

You can’t buy love either.

more fucks on getting shit done and fewer on whether people like you while you’re getting it done,

The more useless paperwork you acquiesce to doing, the more you’ll have heaped upon you. It’s, like, Newton’s Fourth Law or something.

need to set some boundaries

self-police my social media to make sure I didn’t get caught in a lie—the

I don’t talk to my son anymore because of his wife’s Facebook insults.

Are you worried that your friends will be mad at you if you just tell them the polite truth? Then you worry too much.

But it wasn’t just about the time and money. I also spent a lot of energy worrying about who would know whether I did or didn’t contribute,

I like my OWN charities, not someone else charities.

Chinese martial art tai chi, the general principle of which is to yield to an incoming attack rather than meet it with opposing force. In doing so, you absorb your opponent’s energy and redirect it back at her

polite response about how you’re superhappy for her, and you hope she understands that you don’t have extra money to spend in pursuit of anyone else’s hopes and dreams.

If there’s something I don’t give a fuck about but that exists in that gray area of potentially hurting someone else’s feelings no matter how honest and polite I am, I simply chalk it up to a “personal policy.” As in “I have a personal policy against donating to Kickstarter campaigns, because if I donate to one, I feel like I have to donate to them all. I just can’t afford it, and if I had to choose, I wouldn’t want anyone I love to think I value them more or less than anyone else.”

This is the best thing to remember and use.

“I have a personal policy against _______________, because if I _______________ one, I feel like I have to _______________ them all. I just can’t afford it, and if I had to choose, I wouldn’t want anyone I love to think I value them more or less than anyone else.” Now, imagine

We’ve engaged in some hard-core visualization, learned the difference between feelings and opinions, practiced the art of not giving a fuck about what other people think, scrutinized our Fuck Budgets, and gotten the lowdown on personal policies (a personal favorite).

And that’s the key: giving your fucks to the things that make you happy—like reading or cooking or playing with your mini-me—and not giving a fuck about the rest.

Sometimes it’s okay to hurt people’s feelings

few scenarios in which it is okay to hurt a stranger’s feelings in the process of not

Once you feel guilty, you have already failed at not giving a fuck.

This pertains especially to family. My GIFT is an obligation and an entitlement to them! They don’t express any gratitude and thus I no longer GIVE.

One of the central tenets of fuck-giving is choice over obligation.

Things you can control vs. things you can’t.

makes no sense whatsoever to give a fuck about anyone or anything just because of your genetic link to that person or thing.

Grandchildren are OWED NOTHING! Their parents ( my children) are their caretakers.

are honest and polite about your difference of opinion and you request that religion no longer be a topic of discussion among family, you are not being an asshole.

Religion is based on BELIEF and therefore will never change.

got so caught up in the obligation/shame/guilt spiral that you felt paralyzed.

looked each family member right in the eye and said, “Dick, Jane, I love you, but we are not having this conversation.”

Shame is lonely and isolating, and guilt is a direct result of shame.

or nine years ago, we told our families that we were starting a three-year rotation and that henceforth, we’d be doing the holiday with each group in a prescribed order, no exceptions.

Yes, by getting married, you’ve essentially doubled your family fuck-giving in one fell swoop.

they inherited you too. And your religious values, and your political views, and your holiday traditions, and your aversion to dressing in matching turtlenecks for group photos.

Remember as you go that “giving a fuck” is akin to spending your time, energy, and/or money on anything that made it onto one of your lists. By crossing something out and NOT giving that fuck, you should GAIN more time, energy, and/or money to spend on everything else.

like this comes up very often. Probably easier to just give the fuck and not deal with the fallout. Have I taught you nothing?

The holy fucking trinity: Time, energy, and money