The Subtle Art of Not Giving a F*ck: A Counterintuitive Approach To Living A Good Life

Written by Mark Manson. Published by HarperOne in 2016. 212 pages. Rating: 4/5.

Our world is full of distractions. Our phones constantly push us notifications. We receive thousands of junk emails claiming we need to look at these “amazing” deals. Television bombard us with a nauseating amount of information that has has little to no bearing on our day to day lives. Even a lot of what we call “news” isn’t even news, it’s entertainment made to look important. All these distractions demand we pay attention and give a damn about what they say. In his wildly popular book, The Subtle Art of Not Giving a Fuck, renown blogger and author Mark Manson writes about how we can live a better life by being more selective about what we give our attention over to.

The Subtle Art of Not Giving a Fuck is a self-help book but is written in such a way that makes it feel out of place in that genre. It shares the common theme of self-help books by asserting that you need to do X, Y, Z in order to feel better, obtain mental clarity, be your best self etc… Within the first chapter the book Manson gives a concise goal for his book, stating: “This book will help you think a little bit more clearly about what you’re choosing to find important in life and what you’re choosing to find unimportant” (20). His thesis statement stuck out to me because what Manson is asking us to realign our values in order to live a better life.

These values that we ought to find important are as the title suggests, counterintuitive. Happiness seems like a value we should strive for, but Manson finds that not to be the case. Referring to it as “the hedonic treadmill,” he says that more we aim for happiness, the less happiness we’ll experience. Instead, we should aim for meaningful suffering, which is to say we should aim for something that will bring us fulfillment but in the process it might not be pleasant. For example, we might need to go on a diet to lose weight and achieve our ideal body. Cutting calories from our diet can be painful because we might really want to go to the all you can eat sushi bar with our friends, but if we do that constantly we won’t achieve our goal. We need to suffer to grow (or shrink!).

Happiness and suffering are just two topics in the book. There are a ton of insightful chapters about how we view ourselves, humility is something we ought to practice, and don’t be afraid of failure. “The path to happiness is full of shitheaps and shame” (38). Risk being bold. Don’t care about what other people think. If we give too many f*cks about what others think, we won’t do anything at all.

The Subtle art of Not Giving a F*ck: A Counterintuitive Approach to Living a Good Life is a great book and I recommend it others who are into self-help books and want a different approach to the genre. The subject matter is applicable to most people, especially those heading into college or finding a career. Don’t place too much value on the things that don’t matter, common sense right? This book will help you find find good values that will help steer you towards a better life.