Name: The Life-Changing Magic of Not Giving a F*ck
Rating: 3.1 (137 reviews)
Author: Sarah Knight

What’s in it for me? How to not give a fuck and feel damn good about it.

You attend pointless meetings at work. You help your aunt clear out her basement. You go to your friend’s boring board game “parties.”

All these good deeds waste your precious time; and really, you couldn’t give a fuck about them.

Not giving a fuck means to stop spending time, energy and money on things that annoy you or make you unhappy. Importantly, when you stop giving a fuck, the things you do and the time you spend doing them will bring you true feelings of joy.

These blinks will show you how to stop giving a fuck without hurting other people’s feelings. You’ll learn practical methods on avoiding what makes you miserable and get clear on what to say “yes” to.

In these blinks, you’ll also learn

what to do with unwanted gifts;
how to not donate to a friend’s Kickstarter campaign; and
how to deal with the fucks you just can’t stop giving.

Learning how to not give a fuck means being honest while respecting people’s feelings.

As we get older, we tend to stop caring about certain things, like being in perfect shape, keeping up with reality TV shows or following celebrity gossip.

But there are other things that are harder to let go of. Most of us have things in our lives that we wish we didn’t care so much about, but it’s difficult to shake them loose.

To change this, you need to explore the Not Sorry Method.

This method has two main steps. The first is to decide that you won’t give a fuck about a certain thing; the second is to actually not give a fuck about the thing. What’s more, you should not feel sorry about your lack of interest!

For instance, let’s say you hate attending baby showers. You receive your umpteenth invitation to a shower and this time, you decide you won’t go. You don’t give a fuck, so you make decisions accordingly!

Not giving a fuck doesn’t mean you should disregard the feelings of others, but you should ignore their opinions. You can’t control what other people think, and really, their opinions are the least of your worries.

Opinions don’t matter; feelings do. Unless you want to be a jerk, you need to consider how other people feel and, while not caring about some things is great, you don’t want your actions to wreck your relationships.

Let’s say you detest the all-natural peanut butter that your friend makes and sells. She wants you to attend one of her peanut butter parties, but your impulse is to just tell her how much you hate the stuff.

Doing so, however, would hurt her feelings. The better option is to politely but honestly decline her invitation. You can let your friend know that you don’t share her love for peanut butter in general, which is honest and a stance that won’t necessarily burn any bridges.

So that’s the basics behind the Not Sorry Method. Next you’ll learn how to deploy it, step by step.

Categorization will help you separate essential concerns from inessential ones.

Imagine a barn, but instead of bales of hay, it’s filled to the rafters with crap. That’s basically what your mind is like, filled with piles of waste. And it needs to be cleaned out.

This spring cleaning is essential to not giving a fuck, because before you can stop caring about things, you need to identify all the stuff you do give a fuck about.

The difficulty of not caring about a person’s opinions rests on your relationship to that person.

Let’s practice the Not Sorry Method to perfect your ability of not giving a fuck. Here’s how to not care when it comes to the needs and opinions of strangers, acquaintances and even family.

There’s no question that not caring is easier when it comes to strangers than it is with friends or acquaintances. But you can do it.

Advance from beginner to expert level in the various categories of not giving a fuck.

There are certain things that universally get on people’s nerves, and these things fall into categories. Once you establish which things in your mind you can chuck and which category they fall under, you can advance from beginner to expert level in not giving a global fuck.

When it comes to Things, for instance, there are many items that irritate; one modern scourge is social media.

Be polite and honest when dealing with your social circle; but know that sometimes it’s not enough.

Now that you know how to build your skills in not giving a fuck about Things and Work, let’s look at how to manage strangers, acquaintances, and friends and family.

An event like a wedding offers a useful example here, as it’s a place where you’ll encounter all sorts of people. The main rule, as always, is if you don’t want to give a fuck, then you shouldn’t. But you still need to remain polite and honest in the process.

Kernaussagen in The Life-Changing Magic of Not Giving a F*ck