Everything Is F*cked: A Book About Hope

by Mark Manson

pain is the universal constant of the human condition. Therefore, the attempt to move away from pain, to protect

oneself from all harm, can only backfire. Trying to eliminate pain only increases your sensitivity to suffering, rather than alleviating your suffering.

No matter how much progress is made, no matter how peaceful and comfortable and happy our lives become, the Blue Dot Effect will snap us back to a perception of a certain amount of pain and dissatisfaction.

sunny our day is, we’ll always find that one cloud in the sky.

The pursuit of happiness is a toxic value that has long defined our culture. It is self-defeating and misleading.

well does not mean avoiding suffering; it means suffering for the right reasons. Because if we’re going to be forced to suffer by simply existing, we might as well learn how to suffer well.

the ability to endure extraordinary amounts of pain.21 I can’t even sit up straight at dinner for more than a few minutes. Meanwhile, this guy was fucking burning alive and he didn’t even move. He didn’t flinch. He didn’t scream. He didn’t smile or wince or grimace or even open his eyes to take one last look at the world he had chosen to leave behind.

It is the ultimate example of mind over matter, of will over instinct.

Taleb argued that just as some systems become weaker under stress from external forces, other systems gain strength under stress from external forces.23

Fragile systems are like beautiful little flowers or a teenager’s feelings: they must be protected at all times.

“antifragile” system. Whereas a fragile system breaks down and a robust system resists change, the antifragile system gains from stressors and external pressures.

Will you engage your pain or avoid your pain? Will you choose fragility or antifragility?

If any of these things is fragile

in your life, it is because you have chosen to avoid the pain. You have chosen childish values of chasing simple pleasures, desire, and self-satisfaction.

actual Buddhist meditation is far more intense than simply de-stressing oneself with fancy apps. Rigorous meditation involves sitting quietly and mercilessly observing yourself. Every thought, every judgment, every inclination, every minute fidget and flake of emotion and trace of assumption that passes before your mind’s eye is ideally captured,

they’re “not good” at meditation. There is no getting good. That’s the whole point. You are supposed to suck at it. Just accept the suckage. Embrace the suckage. Love the suckage.

It’s because they know what meditation really is: it’s confronting your pain, it’s observing the interiors of your mind and heart, in all their horror and glory.

The Buddha said that suffering is like being shot by two arrows. The first arrow is the physical pain—it’s the metal piercing the skin, the force colliding into the body. The second arrow is the mental pain, the meaning and emotion we attach to the being struck, the narratives that we spin in our minds about whether we deserved or didn’t deserve what happened. In many cases, our mental pain is far worse than any physical pain. In most cases, it lasts far longer.

the Buddha said that if we could train ourselves to be struck only by the first arrow,

we could essentially render ourselves invincible to any menta...

The adolescent has a higher pain threshold because the adolescent understands that pain is often a necessary trade-off to achieve his goals. The notion of enduring pain for some sort of future benefit thus allows

you can simply do the best you can do, regardless of the consequences.

enough period of time. Truly adult values are antifragile: they benefit from the unexpected. The more fucked up a relationship gets, the more useful honesty becomes. The more terrifying the world

Pain is at the heart of all emotion. Negative emotions are caused by experiencing pain. Positive emotions are caused by alleviating pain. When we

avoid pain and make ourselves more fragile, the result is our emotional reactions will be wildly disproportional to the importance of the event.

The pursuit of happiness is, then, an avoidance of growth, an avoidance of maturity, an avoidance of virtue. It is treating ourselves and our minds as a means to some emotionally giddy end. It is sacrificing our consciousness for feeling good. It’s giving up our dignity for more comfort.

growth has liberated us from suffering, rather than merely transmuting that suffering from a physical form to a psychological form.28

What the Enlightenment did get right is the idea that, on average, some pain is better than others.

When we deny ourselves the ability to feel pain for a purpose, we deny ourselves the ability to feel any purpose in our life at all.

we tell about ourselves, and that we are emotionally attached to those stories and will fight to maintain them.

if you can tap into people’s insecurities, they will buy just about any damn thing you tell them to.

The idea is that you needle at people’s shame and insecurity and then turn around and tell them your product will resolve that shame and rid them of that insecurity.

The world runs on one thing: feelings. This is because people spend money on things that make them feel good.

Money is itself a form of exchange used to equalize moral gaps between people.

make people feel better (or prevent them from feeling worse).

The more you numb pain, the worse that pain becomes, thus impelling you to numb it further. At a certain point, the icky ball of pain grows to such great proportions that your avoidance of that pain becomes compulsive. You lose control of yourself—your

innovation to diversion, from upgrading pain to avoiding pain.

The internet, in the end, was not designed to give us what we need. Instead, it gives people what they want.

what we want sucks. For example, I want a life-size bag of marshmallows in my living room. I want to buy an eight-million-dollar

spontaneously

“Give the people what they want” is just #FakeFreedom because what most of us want are diversions. And when we get flooded by diversions, a few things happen.

The only true form of freedom, the only ethical form of freedom, is through self-limitation.

Diversions come and go. Pleasure never lasts. Variety loses its meaning. But you will always be able to choose what you are willing to sacrifice, what you are willing to give up.

The pain of regular physical exercise ultimately enhances your physical freedom—your strength, mobility, endurance, and stamina.

real freedom is the conscious decision to live with less.

they would have on people’s values, how too much pleasure makes everyone childish and selfish and entitled and totally narcissistic and unbearable on Twitter.

He was the first to argue that one must build character through various forms of self-denial, rather than through self-indulgence.

“Extreme freedom can’t be expected to lead to anything but a change to extreme slavery.”28

Democracy can exist only when you are willing to tolerate views that oppose your own, when you’re willing to give up some things you might want for the sake of a safe and healthy community, when you’re willing to compromise and accept that sometimes things don’t go your way.

Put another way: democracy requires a citizenry of strong maturity and character.