The Subtle Art of Not Giving a F*ck Book Summary - The Subtle Art of Not Giving a F*ck Book explained in key points

The Subtle Art of Not Giving a F*ck summary

Name: The Subtle Art of Not Giving a F*ck
Rating: 4.3 (4441 reviews)
Author: Mark Manson

Mark Manson

A Counterintuitive Approach to Living a Good Life

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4.3 (4441 ratings)

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What is The Subtle Art of Not Giving a F*ck about?

The Subtle Art of Not Giving a F*ck (2016) lays out how to live a better life by caring about fewer things. If you follow few simple rules, you can enjoy a happier, less stressful existence.

About the Author

Mark Manson is an author and renowned blogger. Over the past few years, his blog, www.markmanson.net, has garnered a following of several million people. He lives and works in New York City.

Table of Contents

Key idea 1 of 8

Whatever you do in life will be a struggle, so you need to find the struggle that’s right for you.

What do you really want out of life? In other words, what’s your ultimate goal – the achievement you want written on your headstone?

It’s not such an easy question to answer, is it? Sure, many of us will claim that we want happiness, a loving family and a job we enjoy, but these are pretty vague ambitions. And vague ambitions are problematic because they won’t push you to strive for success.

Unfortunately, if you want to get anywhere in life, you’ll have to struggle. Achieving your goals will require hard work and plenty of perseverance; it’s guaranteed that there will be setbacks and hardships on the way.

If you don’t have a goal you’re determined to achieve, you’ll falter in the face of this adversity. Let’s say becoming a CEO is your goal. After all, being a CEO certainly sounds cool: just think of all that power and responsibility. And yet, being a CEO is far from a walk in the park.

CEOs regularly put in 60-hour workweeks, they have to make tough decisions and they need to be ready to fire people, time and time again. If you aren’t hell-bent on becoming a CEO, you’ll struggle with the hard work, and your chances of being a success will be slim.

Since struggle is unavoidable, you have to find something worth struggling for. You have to identify what you really enjoy doing. Working on something that makes you happy means you’ll not only be undeterred by the constant battle; you’ll grow to love it.

Take the author. He realized that he really enjoyed writing about dating, and so he decided to focus on writing a dating-advice blog. It was a challenge at first, but because he loved what he did, he thrived on the adversity. Eventually, the struggle paid off; the blog garnered hundreds of thousands of subscribers and it paid more than enough for the author to make it his full-time job.

There is no point looking for an easy life, one without adversity. The only way you’ll get ahead is to find a goal that you want to struggle for. However, it’s equally important to say no to all the struggles and tasks that don’t bring you joy. Be ruthless and stop chasing the things in life that don’t make you happy. Concentrate on the few great things – and don’t give a fuck about everything else.

Suffering can lead to great things, but if you don’t have the right values, you’ll never be happy.

The best examples of success through struggle can be found in the art world. After all, we tend to imagine the quintessential artist as poverty-stricken and underappreciated – someone who refuses to give in until her genius is recognized.

And this stereotype is actually more accurate than you’d imagine.

Many people tend to focus on shitty values, so it’s important to find some good ones to believe in.

In the previous blink, we saw that measuring your worth by comparing yourself to others will only lead to disappointment. And this is just one of many shitty values that can derail you on your path to happiness.

Consider pleasure, for instance. Many people choose to make pleasure their priority in life. And yet chasing pleasure above everything else isn’t healthy; in fact, it’s the central value of drug addicts, adulterers and gluttons. Research has shown that those who regard pleasure as the greatest good are likely to be anxious and depressed.

Sometimes we feel like victims, but positive change only happens when you take full responsibility for your life.

Every year, thousands of amateur runners take part in marathons. Many of them do so to raise money for good causes. Even though a great many struggle to finish, most marathon runners are proud of their achievement. Now imagine that, instead of volunteering to run a marathon, you were forced to take part. No matter how well you actually ran, chances are you’d detest the whole experience.

Feeling compelled to do something robs it of its joy.

We often flee when our identity is threatened, but Buddhism can help.

Picture this: You’re a senior manager at a large, illustrious company. You like your job and the compensation; you have a nice car, sharp clothes and the respect of your colleagues. Most of all, you love being a senior manager. Being a senior manager is who you are.

Now, imagine that you have the chance to get right to the top. However, the opportunity isn’t without substantial risks. If you fail to pull it off perfectly, you’ll lose everything – the job, the car, the respect and, most importantly, your identity.

You need to accept your mistakes and insecurities if you want to see positive change.

Don’t you just hate those annoying people who always think they’re right? Those smug know-it-alls who, even when you tell them they’re in the wrong, simply won’t listen?

Thank heavens you’re not like that yourself! Well, unfortunately, you are.

Romantic love can be destructive unless we learn to control it.

Romeo and Juliet is perhaps the most famous love story in the world. And yet it’s hardly a happy one; it’s a rather chaotic story, involving murder, exile and blood feuds and it ends with both lovers committing suicide.

The tragic tale of those star-crossed lovers highlights the destructive power of romantic love. Studies have shown that passionate, romantic relationships have a stimulating effect on the brain similar to that of cocaine. That is, you experience an intense high and then you crash back down. Then, you search again for the high, though not necessarily with the same person – a recipe for pain and anguish.

Humans are terrified of death, and so they try to live on beyond it.

You might not like to think about it, but you’re going to die one day. This uncomfortable fact, and how we deal with it, has an awful lot to do with how we live our lives.

To fully understand just how much control death has over our lives, we can look to the work of Ernest Becker. Becker was a doctor of anthropology and a bit of a maverick. Although his unconventional approach and early death limited his academic career, he did write an influential book about dying, The Denial of Death.

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Anyone feeling stressed or overburdened with life
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The Subtle Art of Not Giving a F*ck summary

Listen to the first key idea

What is The Subtle Art of Not Giving a F*ck about?

About the Author

Whatever you do in life will be a struggle, so you need to find the struggle that’s right for you.

Suffering can lead to great things, but if you don’t have the right values, you’ll never be happy.

Many people tend to focus on shitty values, so it’s important to find some good ones to believe in.

Sometimes we feel like victims, but positive change only happens when you take full responsibility for your life.

We often flee when our identity is threatened, but Buddhism can help.

You need to accept your mistakes and insecurities if you want to see positive change.

Romantic love can be destructive unless we learn to control it.

Humans are terrified of death, and so they try to live on beyond it.

Key ideas in The Subtle Art of Not Giving a F*ck

Whatever you do in life will be a struggle, so you need to find the struggle that’s right for you.

Suffering can lead to great things, but if you don’t have the right values, you’ll never be happy.

Many people tend to focus on shitty values, so it’s important to find some good ones to believe in.

Sometimes we feel like victims, but positive change only happens when you take full responsibility for your life.

We often flee when our identity is threatened, but Buddhism can help.

You need to accept your mistakes and insecurities if you want to see positive change.

Romantic love can be destructive unless we learn to control it.

Humans are terrified of death, and so they try to live on beyond it.

Who should read The Subtle Art of Not Giving a F*ck

Categories with The Subtle Art of Not Giving a F*ck

Books like The Subtle Art of Not Giving a F*ck

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