Everything Is F*cked: A Book About Hope

by Mark Manson

No, being heroic is the ability to conjure hope where there is none. To strike a match to light up the void. To show us a possibility for a better world—not a better world we want to exist, but a better world we didn’t know could exist. To take a situation where everything seems to be absolutely fucked and still somehow make it good.

No, the opposite of happiness is hopelessness, an endless gray horizon of resignation and indifference.3 It’s the belief that everything is fucked, so why do anything at all?

Hopelessness is the root of anxiety, mental illness, and depression. It is the source of all misery and the cause of all addiction.

But the Feeling Brain is stubborn, and if it wants to go in one direction, it will drive that way no matter how many facts or data the Thinking Brain provides. Moral psychologist Jonathan Haidt compares the two brains to an elephant and its rider: the rider can gently steer and pull the elephant in a particular direction, but ultimately the elephant is going to go where it wants to go.18

In order to avoid these psychological kerfuffles, and to maintain a sense of hope, the Thinking Brain develops a tendency to draw maps explaining or justifying where the Feeling Brain has already decided it wants to go. If the Feeling Brain wants ice cream, instead of contradicting it with facts about processed sugar and excess calories, your Thinking Brain decides, “You know what, I worked hard today. I deserve some ice cream,” and your Feeling Brain responds with a sense of ease and satisfaction.

The pursuit of happiness is a toxic value that has long defined our culture. It is self-defeating and misleading. Living well does not mean avoiding suffering; it means suffering for the right reasons.

Evolution rewards the most powerful creatures, and power is determined by the ability to access, harness, and manipulate information effectively.

Biochemical weapons, climate change, endangered species, genocide—you name it, none of it was an issue until we came along.13 Domestic violence, rape, money laundering, fraud—it’s all us.

Despite all our accomplishments, the human mind is still incredibly flawed. Our ability to process information is hamstrung by our emotional need to validate ourselves. It is curved inward by our perceptual biases. Our Thinking Brain is regularly hijacked and kidnapped by our Feeling Brain’s incessant desires—stuffed in the trunk of the Consciousness Car and often gagged or drugged into incapacitation.

Don’t hope for better. Just be better.