Book Summary — The Subtle Art of not Giving a Fuck
Chapter 1: Don’t Try
Hey guys, so I just finished this one book, The Subtle Art of not Giving a Fuck, and it’s really good. TLDR, this book is written by Mark Manson, a superstar blogger and it’s about how to be a stronger and happier people in handling adversity better.
I’m trying to review and summarize this book, in my own way, in my own language, and I will try to do it per chapter. Hope that I can convey it well so there is no misinterpretation, so here we go.
Do you guys realize that our culture today is run by marketing ideas? To live a better life, to be positive. Like, be rich, be sexy, be popular, be productive, more envied, have a nice house in the central of the town or have villa, find the love of your life and live happily ever after. Well, there’s nothing wrong with that, sure, if could, then why not. But, Mark here said that it’s kinda bad, because it’s fixating on what we lack.
It lasers in on what you perceive your personal shortcomings and failures to already be, and then emphasize them for you.
Our society keeps telling su to be more, more and more positive all the time. And to be positive all the time, we are constantly getting the same message again and again, which is to give a fuck about everything, again and again. Sadly, giving more fuck doesn’t guarantee you to be positive and live a better life.
A better life is achieved through a better choice of fuck, not more fuck.
The Feedback Loop from Hell
Just like its name, its a loop. What’s the loop about? It’s about feedback. Imagine this, you’re angry about your friend for ditching you. She went to a party with her other friend, instead of you because he/she is much cooler than you. Then, being such a good person you are, you realize that you’re angry. Then you feel angry for getting angry, and guess what, it doesn’t stop there. You feel shitty that you’re getting angry for such no good reason and you are angry because you are angry at yourself for being angry. And the loop goes on and on and on.
The feedback loop from hell has become a borderline epidemic, making many of us overly stressed, overly neurotic, and overly self-loathing.
Why you ask, because in this era of free information for all, you could see in your timeline everyday, people are posting about their great lives. It’s like saying, “Hey, my life is better than yours! Bye loser!”. And then, you feel like such a loser and the feedback loop from hell doesn’t forget to play its part.
This is why choosing which fuck to give is the key to have a better life.
You don’t have to give a fuck about what other people do / have, stop comparing yourself to them. If you give a fuck about them and want to be like them, you are admitting that you are less then them.You’re craving for positive experience.
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.
^ This is called the backward law, by Alan Watts. It’s backward because not giving a fuck works in reverse. So, for you to be positive, you have to go through all the bad experience first. There’s no such thing as free thing. If you want to have, let’s say a sixpack, you have to work your ass of, go to the gym or something. If you want to be brave, you have to face your fears, and something like that. And the opposite also works well. Any attempt to avoid, to silence the negative experience will only backfire.
The avoidance of suffering is a form of suffering. The avoidance of a struggle is a struggle. The denial of failure is a failure. Hiding what is shameful, is itself a form of shame.
To not give a fuck is a stare down life’s most terrifying and difficult challenges and still take action.
Although this sounds stupid and also simple, it’s so hard to do. So, Mark here has some guide for us, how to not give a fuck. Because, if you give a fuck, you will feel that you’re entitled to be happy, to be comfortable, for the world to give you what you wanted
The Subtle Art of Not Giving a Fuck
Subtlety #1: Not giving a fuck does not mean being indifferent, it means being comfortable with being different.
You see, in life, it’s impossible to not give a fuck. You have to give a fuck about something. You just have to choose it right. You have to enjoy the fuck that you give. You should have the willingness to be different, not doing what society choose for you, to what they say are important. You should decide for yourself, what is truly important to you.
Subtlety #2: To not give a fuck about adversity, you must first give a fuck about something more important than adversity.
This is emphasizing the first point. So you should find an important meaningful something to give a fuck. Because if you don’t, you will have your life, and in this case, your fucks to meaningless things.
Here’s a story from Mark. An old lady, was angry at a cashier for not receiving her coupon. The coupon was only worth for 30 cents. Why was this old lady angry? Why she gave a fuck about such cheap coupon? Because maybe that lady didn’t have anything else to do besides sitting and collecting coupons. She was old and her kids never visited her. She hadn’t had sex in like 30 years and she had a terrible aching back-pain. So, the coupon was her life. She gave all of her fuck to some frigging coupons. So, when the cashier rejected it, of course she was angry. It’s like saying that the cashier is telling her that what she has been doing all this time, was wrong.
So, the lesson is, you don’t want to be like that old lady right? You should choose, what is important to you, to what things you should give a fuck.
Subtlety #3:: Whether you realize it or not, you are always choosing what to give a fuck about.
And, repeating what has been said before, again and again. We should be more selective, what to give a fuck about. It’s called maturity.
“Maturity is what happens when one learns to only give a fuck about what’s truly fuck worthy.”.
So, that’s Chapter 1. Wait till I release the Chapter 2 :)
