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Book Review: How to not give a f*ck

Warm yet outrageously honest, Mark Manson’s “The Subtle Art of not Giving a F*ck” gives an “in your face” advice on what you should really care about.

What’s it about?

The book starts with the premise: “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”.

He takes it even further, Manson presents 3 ideas; (1) not giving a f*ck does not mean being indifferent; it means being comfortable with being different, being mediocre, not being entitled, (2) to not give a f*ck about adversity, you must first give a f*ck about something more important than adversity, (3) whether you realise it or not, you’re always choosing what to give a f*ck about. To be happy then, you choose to care about good problems, which bring other good problems to your life.

So, a good problem is defined by your values.

Good values are: (1) reality based, (2) socially constructive, (3) immediate and controllable. Examples: vulnerability, self-respect, curiosity, honesty, charity, taking responsibility and accountability, humility, and being open minded, accepting uncertainty, having boundaries.

Bad values are: (1) superstitious, (2) socially destructive, (3) not immediate or controllable. Examples: dominance through manipulation or violence, indiscriminate f*cking, always being the center of attention, always being right, pleasure seeking, avoiding problems.

Your values shape your beliefs, your beliefs shape your problems. How you solve them is entirely up to you.

Say, for illustration, Person A’s got dyslexia. Values of vulnerability, responsibility, and boundaries of not allowing himself to feel miserable, Person A takes action. He finds strategies and coping mechanisms, that’s relevant to his own needs and wants, to help him carry himself. His good problem is then, living with his condition in an empowering way, not feeling helpless or powerless.

He’ll never be able to solve this good problem, but living and dealing with this, brings forth other good problems (E.g. A well-paying job with its own challenges, paying a house mortgage). His solutions to dealing with his initial good problem, can help him live or solve other good problems

On the other side of it, a bad problem’s one where bad values shape your beliefs and framing of the problem, leading to avoidance and little responsibility to address it.

Say now, we’ve got Person B with dyslexia too. But, in contrast to Person A, his values of self-pity, avoidance, absolute certainty, rejection, maladaptive coping of pain and suffering through pleasure seeking, enables him to ignore his problem. He drinks, parties, seeing himself as a helpless victim of circumstances, and goes deeper into depression. His bad problem, brings forth more bad problems (E.g. Loneliness, shallow and unfulfilling relationships, dysfunctional dynamics at work). He only has bad solutions to deal with this. Unless he changes his values to reframe the problem, and get good solutions to them, he’s going to be miserable.

But wait, there’s more!

The summary gives an easy to follow walkthrough on what the book essentially tries to sell. But, unless you’ve read the book and thought about the relationship between the chapters, you’d find that the points in Manson’s book isn’t as coherent as what’s written here. The book suffers from incoherent and seemingly disconnected points, suggesting Manson didn’t string his thoughts and link them enough, for sensible reading. If Manson had elaborated the relationship between the points he was trying to make, the book wouldn’t have fallen short of being a pleasant read.

On a final thought, the book does deliver what it promised to do, but it would be too much to give it incredible recognition, contrary to popular positive public sentiment. The Greek Stoics have given a more elaborate commentary about how to care less about matters beyond our control, who’ve been given less recognition by the public, than Manson.

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