It has been a while since Mark wrote the Art of Not Giving a F*ck series. They have three parts, and one of them, “The subtle art of not giving a f*ck”, sold millions of copies and became the most selling book of the year 2017.
Let’s talk about one of the best-selling books for self-growth: “The Subtle Art of Not Giving a F*uck”.
The Subtle Art of Not Giving a F*ck was published in 2016 by Mark Manson. In the book, the author tries to bring to people’s notice their action or their fear of what people think about them. The book revolves around the individual’s value: what are you giving a f*ck about and why?
This book is essentially about values; whom or to which things you are giving values tells whether you are growing or on a downhill journey: Good and Bad values.
Most people misunderstood this book at first; the book is about not giving a f*ck about anything, be careless, but that’s not the message Mark Manson tries to convey to us via his book.
The book is telling us:
- What sort of things should we give a f*ck about?
- What sorts of things should we have on our plate in the first place?
We will review this book, chapter-wise, and provide you with brief information about the subject Mark Manson has presented in each chapter of this book:
The book contains overall 9 chapters in which you will find the answers to many problems like, why are you suffering? About your values and some important suggestions for your personal growth.
Chapter 1: Don’t Try
The author talks about our emotions and experiences. The chapter is based on the motto ‘don’t try’. Alan Walts says:
- The pursuit of positive experience is itself a negative experience.
- The acceptance of a negative experience is itself a positive experience.
This actually describes human nature. We always want to experience positive experiences without even struggling or accepting the negative side of experience to get the positive one.
Here are the three subtleties by which you’ll understand what the author is talking about:
#1: Not giving a f*ck does not mean being indifferent; it means being comfortable with being different.
We all have seen indifferent people actually being internet trolls and potato couches. They are indifferent, but they also make themselves indifferent by giving too many f*cks to the people. People who have been trolled because of their dress don’t even try to get a nice dress because they are afraid of what people will think about them.
The same happens with someone with white or different hair than everyone else. That person doesn’t try to give a new look to their hair, not because they are comfortable with that but because they think people will troll them.
By this statement, Not giving a f*ck does not mean being indifferent. It means being comfortable with being different, Mark explains, that give a f*ck to the more important things in your life, not to those unnecessary things, and don’t give af*ck to the people who troll you. Your career, your family, and their many other things which you should give a f*ck.
Do not care what people think about you.
#2: To not give a f*ck about adversity, you must first give a f*ck about something more important than adversity.
If you are giving too many f*cks to trivial shits like; your boyfriend’s new photo on social media or living happily with his friends, you will get jealous of it. It means your life is not going too well, or there is nothing important to consider.
Mark advises us to divert our minds toward positive things and, more importantly, things in our lives. Not giving a f*ck is not a solution to many things. You just have to give a f*ck only to the more important and necessary things rather than those shits.
#3: Whether you realise it or not, you are always choosing what to give a f*ck.
In childhood or adulthood, we give too many f*cks to each and everything, like the colour of our shoes, and if it doesn’t match our dress or that colour is not nice. Always giving f*ck to the people what they think about us, about our clothes or our decisions. In this, we always choose what to give a f*ck and what not! After a certain point or being a mature person, we don’t even think about all these things or about people! So, choose your f*ck whom or which things you should give and which you should not.
In this book, Mark is also making us realise that choosing wisely means choosing the important things or an important person whom you have to care about. Be careless about the things which don’t really matter or unimportant things in your life.
Chapter 2: Happiness Is a Problem
Mark Manson starts this chapter with the story of the Himalayan king and his son, The Buddha, who tells us the value of suffering and how loss and suffering are inevitable. We can be happy only after recognizing & solving the problems. Avoiding them is not a solution. The author tells us some facts about how people are dealing with problems.
The Disappointment Panda
With the help of the disappointing panda, the author tries to make us understand and face the truth. It is for those of us who always wanted to hear the truth but never wanted to accept it.
- You can not hope for a life without problems. Life is all about solving good problems.
- Be a king/queen of your life and walk even in the streets with confidence.
Where does happiness come from?
Avoiding your problems or behaving like you don’t have any problems will not make you a happy person. Happiness always comes from understanding and solving your problems without making any big issues.
Life is full of constant problems like you are struggling to get a good job, and when you get the job, you have to wake up early in the morning every day and need to work your ass off.
Denial and Victim Mentality
There, you just need to solve these problems and go ahead in your life. Meanwhile, there are two ways where we always feel stuck;
Denial:
People who don’t face reality and deny having problems.
Victim Mentality:
And some of us think they can’t do anything about solving their problems even if they can. These people have thought that only they are suffering from problems and others having a great life without any problems.
Chapter 3: You Are Not Special
Many of us think they deserve special treatment or work on being very special to get that special treatment. This special treatment comes from two entitlements which:
- I suck, and the rest of you are all awesome, so I deserve special treatment.
- I am awesome, and the rest of you all suck, so I deserve special treatment.
The Tyranny of exceptionalism
In today’s world, being average is kind of a failure. People do not accept being average, and they are always in a rush to be exceptional. Meanwhile, whether you are exceptional at something or not, you are still an average person in many ways. Having a boring, simple and average life is also good too. That doesn’t make you a failure.
Chapter 4: The Value of Suffering
“In this chapter, the author tries to tell us the value of suffering by taking the example of the Japan war and the public who had suffered during this war.”
We all are suffering from something knowingly because we are aware of the value of this suffering that is going to give us; for example, studying hard by getting out of our comfort zone to get better results or preparing for our interview to get a better job.
Doesn’t matter what we do, the problems are inevitable. We can’t avoid suffering, but it will backfire on us in any other way. If you are not studying hard, then you have to suffer from that too, and that will also make you realise you have to study hard.
“Here are some questions that we always have in our mind when we are suffering in life but don’t know the reason. Let’s talk about that with a great example given by Mark:
The self-awareness onion
Onions have many layers, and like self-awareness, they have many layers. The more we peel, the more we will know ourselves and the reason for suffering.
- Knowing what you are feeling:
This 1st layer of this onion simply understands our feelings like, “Why am I feeling happy after doing this?”, “What makes me happy?” “This gives me hope”, and “This makes me feel exhausted”.
- Reason of this feeling:
The second peel of the self-awareness onion is knowing the why of your feelings: “Why does this make me feel happy?” “Why this makes me pissed off”. In this layer, you have to realise the reason for your happiness and the cause of your sadness.
- Our values:
The third layer is about the values hardwired in our brains. The things that actually make us. Going through this layer will be a real self-discovery and might even make us cry. They can be difficult for us.
Chapter 5: You Are Always Choosing
Life is a series of choices; we always make a choice in our life for what we should do, what we have to eat or which career we choose. These actions or choices give you results depending upon the situation. For example;
That’s all for now. We will continue our book review from the 5th chapter in part two of this article. If you loved reading it and would like us to write part two, let us know in the comments section.
About author
Mark Manson is the 3 times best-selling book author of the New York Times and whose books have sold over 16 million copies. Before becoming an author, he was a blogger and started selling videos and courses. After starting his career as a blogger, he started gaining millions of traffic to his website without running any ads.
– Manju Verma
