The Subtle Art of Not Giving a F*ck, by Mark Manson
I’ll be honest. At first, I didn’t know what to think of the book. I was like, what is this guy talking about? Does he have any positivity in his life? As a perpetual optimist, I struggled in the beginning with his assessment of life. It was counterintuitive to my spiritual background of having faith and seeing myself as special (we all are). Everything he said seemed to contradict that.
But then as I read the logic behind not giving a f*ck, it all made sense and it aligned more with what I believed.
It’s not that we don’t care, it’s that we have to choose what to care about, as well as adapt certain mindsets. The concepts of accepting responsibility for ourselves, allowing uncertainty, expecting and flowing with failure and truly accepting our immortality (that’s a hard one!!) are what free us to not give a f*ck about things we shouldn’t give a f*ck about.
As I read about how we are responsibility for our own actions, and whether others hurt us in some way, we are still responsible—for our response, that it. We can’t control what others say or do, but we can be responsible for the impact we choose to let them have on us. I 100% get and agree with that concept. Point one was taken.
Uncertainty was another idea that I could get on board with, and so was accepting failure (and our fear of success) as part of our underlying problems in life. Shit’s gonna happen, and we have to learn to adjust, flow and deal with it. Again, going back to our response. Manage our expectations. Take in the lesson. Learn from mistakes. All great stuff.
But when he started talking about facing our inevitable death, that’s when I got super uncomfortable because I will admit, the thought of dying terrifies me.
The way he presented it, however, was that we have a physical, inevitable death, but what we are really seeking to preserve is our conceptual death…or rather, life. What we work so hard for while we are alive is not to stay breathing, but to create or be something that outlives our bodies. Whoa! That got me right in the heart. And although I am not ready to dip my toes into the facing my mortality pool just yet, it did help me to see a better perspective and be less afraid of the inevitable. I thought that was pretty genius.
So although I started out confused and almost a bit closed-down, by the end of the book, I was able to wrap my head around the premise and came away with some really great insight!
To hear more about my thoughts on and how I connected to the concepts of the book, check out my video book review, Find Yourself in a Character:
To learn more about this week’s author, Mark Manson, you can find him here: https://markmanson.net/
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