The Subtle Art of not Giving a F*ck

Short review of The subtle art of not giving a f*ck

Sometimes life just really sucks and we cannot run away from it. We need to learn how to let go in order to enjoy life more.

The key to living a good life is not giving a fuck about more things but rather focus only on the things that align with your personal values.

A no-bullshit approach to living a life that might not always be happy, but meaningful and centered only on what’s important to you.

Finding something important and meaningful in your life is the most productive use of your time and energy.

This is true because every life has problems associated with it and finding meaning in your life will help you sustain the effort needed to overcome the particular problems you face.

Thus, we can say that the key to living a good life is not giving a f*ck about more things, but rather, giving a f*ck only about the things that align with your personal values.

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.

The more you pursue feeling better all the time, the less satisfied you become, as pursuing something only reinforces the fact that you lack it in the first place.

In short, “The Subtle Art of Not Giving a F*ck”, offers insights and tips to help us cope with our pain, failures and regrets, so we can live life fully and find genuine happiness.

Manson delivers the ideas in his unique style, using irreverent and extremely “colorful” language to drive his points home.

The problem with happiness

Pursuing the formula for happiness is a trap. Dissatisfaction and difficulties are intrinsic and necessary elements of life. Biologically we are made to feel dissatisfaction and overcome difficulties. 

They teach us what is good and bad, they allow us to advance, to progress. They give meaning to our existence. If you want to ruin the life of a child, a human being, eliminate all difficulties.

Pursuing to live a life free of difficulties is not only naive, but it prevents us from taking advantage of the benefits of healthy doses of pain. Problems never go away. At best, they change. Do not long for a life free of problems, but a life full of good problems.

Everything valuable requires sacrifice. Experiencing moments of happiness requires effort and struggle. But that's how happiness works. Especially if what we strive for is connected to our values.

If you want to have a fit and healthy body, you must choose to commit to hours at the gym (not that many!) and to improving your diet. 

If you want to be a successful entrepreneur, you will have to take risks, uncertainty and many hours of dedication to a project that may not work out.

It is not worth living a life without pain, without sacrifice. It is better to ask yourself what is the pain worth living for?

Basic ideas to be highlighted in the book

The subtle art of not giving a f*ck highlights some very common elements in people's daily routine, for example:

• The man who thinks he knows everything, knows nothing.
• We are not special, if you have a problem surely millions of people have had it too.
• It's the extremes that attract attention, the rest of us are just a bunch. And we feel bad for not being like them. What happens is that they don't tell you the effort behind to get to that point.
• Accept that your actions don't matter much "in the grand scheme of things," and that it's okay to have a normal life.
• Our culture seems to have become obsessed with positivity. This only serves to constantly remind us of what we are not, what we lack.
• Society increasingly overprotects us from the inevitable discomforts of life, which leads us to not experience the benefits of healthy doses of pain, disconnecting us from the reality of the world around us.
• "The law of retrocession" by the philosopher, Alan Watts: chasing something only reinforces the fact that you lack it.
• Happiness is achieved by solving problems. Happiness is a form of action, you don't find it waiting for you in any place, idea, job, person, book...
• The key is to find good values and parameters. Pleasure and success will come naturally.