The Subtle Art Of Not Giving A F*ck by Mark Manson | Book Review:

The Subtle Art Of Not Giving A F*ck was a book I needed.

We go through life caring way too much about the small stuff.

I am one of the of these people.

If someone is unkind or starts an argument over nonsense, I dwell on that the entire day.

My day could be going great. If one person throws a spoke in that happiness wheel, I can’t recover.

I thought when I was young that this would go away as I grew up. To an extent it did.

The problem was that, as an adult, I would bottle this anger until I exploded. Just as in the Seinfeld episode with Serenity Now – Its Serenity Now and Insanity Later.

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Triggered:

Triggered is a word that gets thrown around a lot these days. I would get triggered by the most minuscule nonsense that people would throw my way.

Someone was crappy to me at work? Triggered.

A person close to me started a confrontation? Triggered.

I overheard someone talking behind my back? Triggered.

Now, I feel I had a right to be pissed over some of this stuff. Although most of the issues were so stupid, it should not have affected me or my state overall.

What this book taught me after reading it is that we can control these emotions. We are the captain of our own emotional ship.

With every action there is a reaction and we can choose how we react. 

The Subtle Art Of Not Giving A F*ck showed me that the reactions I was having were not permanent. I could choose to stay in my state of happiness regardless of outside sources.

How do we steer our reactions from negative to more positive ones?

Enter Mark Manson and The Subtle Art Of Not Giving A F*ck:

When I saw Mark Manson had written a book on these topics, I picked it up immediately.

Mark Manson was an author I have followed for a long time. His book Models was an eye-opening experience for me at a young age.

As Mark grew up so did his writing. He started focusing on philosophy laced with satire. Marks writing was a no holds barred view into self-help. To this day he remains one of my favorite authors in the niche.

The Subtle Art Of Not Giving A F*ck is riddled with philosophy from Bukowski to Buddha. What Mark does though is put his spin on these topics to modernize them for today. This makes the topics discussed in the book very easy to digest.

Throughout the book, we are reminded that life is short. Why go through every day reacting negatively to negative people? In hindsight, this is giving them what they want while keeping our happiness stifled.

Not to mention, that our energy levels plummet. We only have so much energy in the day to give to people and our surroundings. Instead of reserving this energy through happiness, we dish it all out and get exhausted over one minor issue.

As I said before, this could be because of negative people or events in your life.

We can not control the world around us, but we can control ourselves.

The Subtle Art Of Not Giving A F*ck teaches us that, in order to, live a life of happiness, we have to reserve that energy for creating a better life. We only have so much in the tank on a daily basis. Why not learn to control our reactions to small problems and maintain a positive state?

Real Life Application:

In my life The Subtle Art Of Not Giving A F*ck allowed me to let go. It showed me that these problems we think are horrible are not.

I walk through life with a more carefree attitude, not allowing my positivity to be hindered by the world around me. People will be people and bad events will happen. Deal with both but maintain your happiness from within, not from the outside.

Another benefit I got from the book was minimizing complaining. Again, this drains the energy from us while tearing us from being present to the moment.

I still feel negative emotions. The difference is I have control over how it affects me. The focus is kept on maintaining energy levels and a good mood versus having the petty destroy my entire day.

The Subtle Art Of Not Giving A F*ck has allowed me to feel both the positive and negative but choose which will affect me on a deeper level. It has given me access to a better life day in and day out.

No Complaining:

I wrote about this a few years back in my review of Tools Of Titans by Tim Ferriss. In the book, he has a 21 Day Challenge to not complain.

You wear a wristband on your right wrist and if you complain you switch the wrist to remind yourself that you complained that day.

I have never made it a full day.

But the exercise has reminded of the fact that I am giving too much attention to the negative.

In 2019, I will complete this challenge because it is one of the best life hacks I have come across for maintaining a state of happiness.

Conclusion:

The Subtle Art Of Not Giving A F*ck has taught me a lot of things.

The book helped me keep my anger over the petty in check while allowing me to keep control over the emotional rollercoaster life throws at me.

Mark Manson is one of my favorite authors writing self-help.

The Subtle Art Of Not Giving A F*ck is a must read.

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