Not A Summary — The Subtle Art of Not Giving A F*ck
I have got a lot of recommendations about this book from so many people whom I admire, hence I decided to give it a try. It took me two weeks to complete reading the entire book. There are a lot of things that we all can learn from this book and apply in our life. So I decided to write this blog, about the things I liked or can relate to in my life.
Mark Manson is the author of the book and from the very first line of the chapter, he takes you to the whole new universe and makes you think about your view of life. Many people might think that this book talks only about not giving a f*ck to some(any)thing but that's not true. This book explains the counterintuitive approach to living a good life or if I can say it teaches you the values to live a happy life.
So with that said, let's start with my analogy.
Chapter #1: Don’t Try
Mark starts this chapter with Charles Bukowski, who was an alcoholic, a womanizer, a cheapskate, and a poet. He eventually became successful in the later stage of his life after a lot of struggle but he did not end up becoming a better person. So being successful and being a person with values are two different things altogether.
1.1 The Feedback Loop From Hell:
The era we are living in right now tells you every minute, every second that why you are not doing good in your life, let it be via news, social networks, and while meeting people outside. You constantly get feedback which has become a borderline epidemic, making many of us stressed, overly neurotic, and overly self-loathing. That's why not giving a f*ck is so important.
1.2 The Backwards Law:
The desire for a more positive experience is itself a negative experience. And, paradoxically, the acceptance of one’s negative experience is itself a positive experience. For example:
The more you want to be rich, the more poor and unworthy you feel, regardless how much money you make.The more you want to be happy and loved, the lonelier and more afraid you become regardless of those who surround you.
So if you can understand why it is called a “backward” law: not giving a f*ck works in reverse. All the positives in our life achieved by the negative experiences. If you want to build a good physique, you will have to follow a strict diet, show up in the gym, work out, and then you will achieve it. It's a cycle of life.
Everything worthwhile in life is won through surmounting the associated negative experience.
Here Mark shares one piece of advice which I as a reader relates to the most is
In my life, I have given f*ck about many things and like the road not taken, it was the f*cks not given that made all the difference.
1.3 Framework: The Subtle Art of Not Giving A F*ck:
#1 Not giving a f*ck does not mean being indifferent, it means being comfortable with being different
#2 To not give a f*ck about adversity, you must give f*ck about something more important than adversity
#3 Whether you realize it or not, you are always choosing what to give a f*ck about
Chapter #2: Happiness Is A Problem
Happiness is not a solvable equation. Dissatisfaction and unease are inherent parts of human nature and, as we’ll see necessary components to creating consistent happiness.
2.1 Disappointment Panda
Mark invents one superhero called Disappointment Panda whose superpower would be to tell people harsh truths about themselves that they needed to hear but did not want to accept. He would go door to door and show them to mirror or give them the reality check.
He would be the hero that none of us would want but all of us would need.
We are wired to become dissatisfied with whatever we have and satisfied with whatever we do not have
So, don't hope for a life without problems, there is no such thing. Instead, hope for a life full of good problems.
2.2 Framework: Happiness
#1 Problems are constant in life but happiness comes from solving problems.
#2 Emotions are overrated. Negative emotions are a call to action. When you feel them, it's because you’re supposed to do something. Positive emotions, on the other hand, are rewards for taking the proper action.
#3 Choose your struggle. Instead of asking yourself, “What do you want out of life?” ask yourself “What pain do you want in your life?” or “What are you willing to struggle for?” or “What pain do you want to sustain?” that answer will generate the motivation and boost your confidence to achieve something greater. And slowly you will start enjoying the struggle, the pain because you have already determined and made yourself ready to go through this struggle.
Chapter #3: You are not special
Accept — that you are not special. Nobody is. Grade inflation was implemented to make low achieving kids feel better about their lack of achievement.
3.1 Things Fall Apart: Two Forms Of Entitlement
#1 Grandiose Narcissism: I’m awesome and the rest of you all suck, so I deserve special treatment.
#2 Victim Narcissism: I suck and the rest of you are all awesome, so I deserve special treatment.
But ultimately entitlement is a failed strategy because it does not talk about happiness. The true measurement of self-worth is not how a person feels about his/her positive experiences but rather how he/she feels about the negative experiences.
3.2 The Tyranny of Exceptionalism
We all need a reality check at some stage in life. We can not be exceptional in everything but we can become exceptional in some(one)thing. To become great at something we must have to put extreme dedication, hard work, and energy into it. You can be a very good engineer but that does not mean you know all the programming languages.
3.3 I’m Not Going To Be Special
Technology has solved old economic problems by giving us new psychological problems. It has also open-sourced insecurities, self-doubt, and shame. Every person can be extraordinary and achieve greatness just by leaving their ego behind.
Chapter #4: The Value of Suffering
Mark shares a wonderful story of Hiroo Onoda, a Japanese commanding officer who did not surrender. Once World War II came to an end in 1945, the Japanese and Philippine governments sent the search parties to look for him but by then he became the myth, hero, or ghost. People use to call him an urban legend in Japan. When everybody failed, Norio Suzuki an adventurer in 1972 decided that he will go to Lubang and search for him. He found Onoda in 4 days in the jungle. Suzuki asked Onoda why he kept on fighting and killing people even though the war was over long back — he replied saying it's simple, he had been given the order “not to surrender”. When he came back to his country he realized he has wasted 30 years of his life and then he moved to Brazil in 1980.
Humans often choose to dedicate large portions of their lives to seemingly useless or destructive causes.
4.1 The Self-Awareness Onion
Self-awareness is like an onion, it has multiple layers in it. The more you peel them the more you are going to cry.
First Layer: Simple understanding of one’s emotion.
Second Layer: Ability to ask why we feel certain emotions.
Third Layer: Our personal values. How am I choosing to measure myself?
Honest self-questioning is difficult. It requires asking yourself simple questions that are uncomfortable to answer but are more likely to be true.
4.2 Shitty Values
There are certain values we follow which creates poor problems in life. Like:
Pleasure: Pleasure is great but it is a false god. It's not a cause of happiness but the effect of it.
Material Success: Material success is the danger of prioritizing over the other values i.e. honesty, nonviolence, and compassion.
Always Being Right: It's always good to acknowledge that you don't know something and you are wrong sometimes that opens an ocean in front of you to grow and develop.
Staying Positive: Staying positive in the negative situation is an art that can be learned with time and experience that's when you will start seeing positive in everything and nothing can affect your happiness.
4.3 Defining Good And Bad Values
In this section, Mark mentioned certain good and bad values. They are:
Good Values: Reality-based, Socially constructive and immediate & controllable
Bad Values: Superstitious, Socially destructive, and not immediate & controllable
Chapter #5: You Are Always Choosing (Responsibility)
Taking responsibility for everything that occurs in your life, regardless of who’s at fault.
5.1 The Choice:
When we feel that we’re choosing our problems, we feel empowered. When we feel that our problems are being forced upon us against our will, we feel victimized and miserable.
5.2 The Responsibility or Fault Fallacy:
We all love to take responsibility for success and happiness. We often fight over who should get the appreciation or credit for some achievement but it's more important to take show up and take responsibility when there is a failure or own your problems. That's where the real-life improvement comes from.
5.3 Victimhood Chic
We should pick our battles carefully, while simultaneously attempting to empathize a bit with the so-called enemy.
Chapter #6: You’re Wrong About Everything — But So Am I (Uncertainty)
The acknowledgment of your own ignorance and the cultivation of constant doubt in your own beliefs. Growth is an endlessly iterative process where we do go from “wrong” to “right” instead of from “wrong” to “slightly less wrong”.
6.1 Architects of Our Own Beliefs
The human mind is a jumble of inaccuracy. This may make you uncomfortable but it's an incredibly important concept to accept.
6.2 The Danger of Pure Certainty
We must introspect our values and make them uncertain a few times and say that they don't fit in with us anymore because our won ignorance is greater than us all.
6.3 Law of Avoidance
Parkinson’s Law: Work expands so as to fill up the time available for its completion.
Murphy’s Law: Whatever can go wrong will go wrong.
Manson’s Law: The more something threatens your identity, the more you will avoid it.
Chapter #7: Failure Is The Way Forward (Failure)
The willingness to discover your own flaws and mistakes so that they may be improved upon.
7.1 Pain Is Part Of The Process
Learn to sustain the pain you’ve chosen. When you choose a new value, you are choosing to introduce a new form of pain into your life. Things you would like to have in your life do not come easy hence when you start enjoying the pain of the process you will achieve greater things in life.
7.2 The “Do Something” Principle
Do Something is nothing but starting simple. Make it a goal to listen to someone’s problem and give some of your time to helping that person. Just do it once. You can become your own source of inspiration and motivation.
If you don't know what to do, rewrite the problem because when you rewrite the problem, it will help you mind the next step. Your action leads to motivation — it’s not the other way around.
Chapter #8: The Importance Of Saying No (Rejection)
The ability to both say and hear NO, thus clearly defining what you will and will not accept in your life.
8.1 Rejection Makes Your Life Better
Rejection is an inherent and necessary part of maintaining our values, and therefore our identity. We are defined by what we choose to reject. And if we reject nothing we essentially have no identity at all.
8.2 How to Build Trust
Building a track record for trust takes time — certainly a lot more time than it takes to break trust. If someone breaks your trust, then you need to see a consistent track record of improved behavior.
Trust is like a china plate. If you break it once, with some care and attention you can put it back together again.
8.3 Freedom Through Commitment
When you are committed to something you are going to give your 100% to it no matter how hard it gets with the process. This could be the relationships, your career goals, your health anything, and everything.
Commitment allows you to focus intently on a few highly important goals and achieve a greater degree of success than you otherwise would.
Chapter #9: …And Then You Die (Contemplation and Morality)
It’s only when you confront death that it's most clear to you what you should be giving a f*ck about.
Close your eyes and think if you die next year what are all the things you would like to still achieve before you die. What are all the issues you would like to fix?
In a nutshell, life is what “self-improvement” is really about: prioritizing the better values, choosing better things to give f*ck about. Because if you give better f*cks, you will get better problems. And when you get better problems, you get a better life.
You can purchase the book from Amazon: https://amzn.to/3BvA0TB
Thank you for reading this through. I would look forward to the feedback.
