Book Summary — The Subtle Art of not Giving a Fuck (4)
Chapter 4: The Value of Suffering
First, read these to give you some context
Chapter 1: Don’t Try,
Chapter 2: Happiness is a Problem, and
Chapter 3: You are not Special
Here’s quite a long chapter. I’ve warned you :)
Humans often choose to dedicate large portions of their lives to seemingly useless or destructive causes.
^ Sometimes, we secretly know that what we’re going to do is going to make us suffer. But we still do it anyway. Because to us, this suffering means something, and because of that, we are able to endure, and perhaps enjoy the suffering.
Whatever you do, suffering is inevitable. Sure, you could try to avoid them, but remember that from Chapter 1 we already knew that avoiding negative things will backfire. Don’t avoid them and come crying to Google with keywords like, “How do I stop suffering?”. Just have to accept and face them. Just face them and ask yourself this, “Why am I suffering? For what purpose?”.
The Self Awareness Onion
Self-awareness is like an onion. There are multiple layers to it, and the more you peel them back, the more likely you’re going to start crying at inappropriate times.
The 1st layer of this onion is a simple understanding of your own emotion. “I feel happy when I do this.”, “I’m sad when I see that.”, “I’m jealous when I see him with her.”, etc. This is simple to most of us, but to some it is also quite difficult. Sometimes you try to hide or deny your feelings.
The 2nd layer, is the ability to ask why we feel that emotion. When you know you feel something, try to ask yourself, why do you feel like that? Don’t worry, it’s normal to take times. It could take days, weeks, months, or even years for some people. When you’re able to answer the whys, you’re getting better at understanding the cause of your emotions. It helps you to gain more control.
The last layer, the 3rd one, is deeper. It is our personal value. It’s the metrics that you use to give value to things, e.g.
“Why do I consider this as a success/failure?”,
“How am I choosing to measure myself?”,
“By what standard am I judging myself and everyone around me?”
This takes even more effort to get into. You have to keep questioning yourself, answer honestly. Usually the more uncomfortable when you try to answer, the more likely that it’s true. But, it’s the most important, it’s what shapes us into who we are now. Our values determine the nature of our problems, and the nature of our problems determines the quality of lives.
Everything we think and feel about a situation ultimately comes back to how valuable we perceive it to be. People’s perceptions and feelings may change, but the underlying values, and the metrics by which those values are assessed, stay the same.
Maybe what you consider failure all this time, isn’t failure at all. Does it bug you still? Maybe you’ve been looking at it the wrong way. Mark here has a great example from his past experience. So he has a brother and it bugs him a lot when his brother doesn’t return his text / emails. Because it makes Mark feels that his brother doesn’t give a shit about him. This could continue like this.
“If my brother want to have a relationship with me, he would take 1 minute out of his day to reply my texts / emails.”
Why does this make you feel like a failure?
“Because we’re brothers; we’re supposed to have a good relationship!”
Mark has 2 operating gears in here, a value he holds dear, and his metric he uses to his brother. His value: brothers are supposed to have a good relationship. His metric: frequency of contact. And digging this matter deeper gave Mark a new insight.
Why are brothers supposed to have a good relationships?
“”Because they’re family, and family are supposed to be close!”
Why does that seem true?
“Because your family is supposed to matter to you more than anyone else!”
Why does that seem true?”
“Because being close with your family is ‘normal’ and ‘healthy’ and I don’t have that.”
Mark kept questioning himself and he answered honestly. And at his last answer, he clearly admitted that he didn’t feel that way with his family. If you want to live a better live, be like Mark, start questioning yourself, and answer it honestly. After answering the last question, Mark is clear about his underlying value, which was having a good relationship with his brother. He was still confused with his metric, but that’s fine. At least he opened up to himself and tried to change his metric.
Mark realized that perhaps, he doesn’t need to be close to his brother to have that good relationship that he values. Sometimes brothers/sisters, even brothers/sisters who love each other don’t have close relationships. Perhaps the best metrics for him would be mutual trust, and mutual respect, instead of how many times they exchange texts / emails.
What is objectively true about your situation is not as important as how you come to see the situation, how you choose to measure it and value it. We get to control what our problems mean based on how we choose to think about them, the standard by which we choose to measure them.
Shitty Values
There are four shitty values according to Mark, as you can see below. Find the explanation below the image :)
1. Pleasure
Pleasure is usually what we are craving for. And it’s normal for us to be craving it because it’s what been marketed to us 24/7. We chase pleasure to distract ourselves but you know what?
Pleasure is a false god.
People using their energy for superficial pleasures end up more anxious, more emotionally unstable, and more depressed. Pleasure is the most superficial form of life satisfaction and therefore the easiest to obtain and the easiest to lose.
2. Material Success
Who don’t measure how much money they make and what kind of food they eat everyday? You compare it with your friends, your colleagues, envying them and wishing you were them. The grass is always greener on the other side.
Research shows when you are able to provide your basic physical needs (clothes, food, shelter, etc.), the correlation between happiness and worldly success quickly approaches zero. And people who chase material success usually forgot to value things such as honesty, nonviolence, compassion.
When people measure themselves not by their behaviour, but by the status symbols they’re able to collect, then not only are they shallow, but they’re probably assholes as well.
3. Always Being Right
Our brain, although it’s super powerful, we always use it the wrong way. We recall things falsely, have biases, have these wrong assumptions all the time, wanting to try stupid things, etc. Here is a quote from Alexander Pope.
“To err is human; to forgive, divine.”
Humans make mistake all the time. If your metrics is being right all the time, then I pity you. You will feel like shit all the time. :>
When we make mistake, it’s a chance for us to develop our talent, to build experience. We are entering a constant state of learning and growth.
People who base their self-worth on being right about everything prevent themselves from learning from their mistakes. They lack the ability to take on new perspectives and empathize with others. They close themselves off to new and important information.
4. Staying Positive
The truth is, sometimes life sucks, and the healthiest thing you can do is admit it. Constant positivity is a form of avoidance, not a valid solution to life’s problems. Problems which, by the way, if you’re choosing the right values and metrics should be invigorating you and motivating you.
Negative emotions are healthy. As long you know how to maintain it. The trick is to:
a. express them in a socially acceptable and healthy manner and
b. express them in a way that aligns with your value.
Mark here has a value that may seem simple funny to you. He has a nonviolence value. So whenever he is angry, he expresses his anger, and he also makes a point of not punching whoever make him angry in the face. You should realize that punching people in the face is the problem, not the anger. The anger is just the messenger for the fist people receive in their face.
Our lives, are full of problems. Problems are never ending. We knew from Chapter 2 that problems never stop, they merely get exchanged and/or upgraded. Problems involve negative feelings, pain, struggle, hardships, fear, anger, despair, sadness, etc., you name it, they have it. But when you finish that problem, it feels great right? Like you’re born anew, refreshed, full of experience. Exhausted, true. But, when you give it some time, and when you look back, you will miss those moments. That was the moment you felt alive.
Problems add a sense of meaning and importance to our life. Thus to duck our problems is to lead a meaningless (even if supposedly pleasance) existence.
One day, in restrospect, the years of struggle will strike you as the most beautiful — Freud.
Defining Good and Bad Values
So you may have been thinking, what determines good values and what determines bad values? How should we keep our values right? Well, luckily Mark is ready to help you and I’m in the mood to write this, so, okay, here it is.
An example of good values is honesty. Why? It’s in you complete control, it reflects reality, and although it maybe unpleasant it benefits others. Although maybe we have to keep refining our definition of honesty, it is a good value to start.
Then what is a bad value? A bad value usually rely on the external events, because you can’t control it. An example is pleasure. A stranger tells you, you’re beautiful/handsome. I admit that it felt good. But, does it happen every time? No. You can’t control it.
Next, the value and metric isn’t based on reality. Who knows if they’re lying to you? You may feel beautiful/handsome, but, that’s you, not every one else. They might lie to you, their view about you are biased, etc. And, it’s kinda socially destructive. Look at our neighbour country, Korea. Actually, Indonesia too. Yeah, basically our whole society. Here’s a song lyrics from Christina Aguilera.
It’s the beautiful, beautiful, beautiful, beautiful people they want.
It’s the beautiful, beautiful, beautiful, beautiful people they flaunt.It’s the beautiful, beautiful, beautiful, beautiful
beautiful, beautiful, beautiful, beautiful people they love.
What they say, people are competing to be beautiful, and the non beautiful people are bashed. It’s pretty socially destructive.
Preview for the Next 5 Chapters ← emphasis on the 5 and the s
Next 5 chapters are about:
- a radical form of responsibility: taking responsibility for everything that happens in your life;
- uncertainty: acknowledging your ignorance and the cultivation of constant doubt in your beliefs;
- failure: willingness to discover your flaws and mistakes for you to reflect upon and so you can improve;
- rejection: ability to hear and say no, defining what you will and won’t accept in your life, and
- accepting death: helping us keep all our other values in proper perspective.
Stay tuned :)
