The Subtle Art Of Not Giving A F*ck by Mark Manson - Non Fiction Book Summary in English - a counterintuitive Approach to living a good life

Almost all self-help books. Believe first, then it will happen, believe that you will be rich and it will happen.

Visualize, Visualization is what matters. I have written a lot about such books in our blog posts. That is the reason I took so long to speak about this book.

 

Because this book is extremely opposite to what has been said in the other books.  Accept where you are in life and have realistic goals.

 

In the book “The Secret” a person says that he understood why he didn’t have a partner while he was yearning for one.

 

The person had actually parked his car in a space reserved for two cars. Only after he parked the car aside, did he get a partner. The author of this book spoke about many such things.

 

But the author that I am going to talk about says, that if a person accepts their reality, they will grow and understand their flaws. And understand their negatives.

 

Mark Manson has spoken about this in his book, “The subtle art of not giving a F*ck”.

 

As far as Mark Manson is concerned, If we are constantly searching for happiness and positive experiences. It means that we aren’t being positive and we are still negative.

 

We eat when we are hungry and when our stomach is empty. So, if you are searching for happiness, it means that you are accepting that you are not happy.

 

Don’t keep searching, Be happy in the place where you are. And then you keep doing things. Telling someone that we wish them peace and happiness is very exaggerated.

 

There’s no such thing called permanent happiness in our lives and things are not always good. Only when we get beaten up in life, we will learn things and rise up.

 

We learn a lot through our failures and defeats. The fact that you are in a good place now and have grown up to be a better person is because of the mistakes that you have made and the blows that you have received.

 

If you hadn’t experienced any of this you wouldn’t be a human. If you ask me whether we can succeed in love and life. We are going to miss out on a lot of things and a few things are going to be difficult.

 

But we have to be very clear about the things that we want to give up. We should also choose the things that we have to worry about.

 

If the family is important to you, there is no harm in facing the difficulties that arise within the family. Despite that blows, if the career is important for you. You have to think about that.

 

You can’t want everything in life. There are lots of moments in our lives when we think about why all the bad things are happening only to us.

 

When we are extremely sad or extremely happy, we won’t bother about other people’s opinions.  For example, when we are meeting someone after a long time instead of thinking about what other people might say, we express our emotions wholeheartedly.

 

Which is our true self. And when we are extremely sad, we won’t be thinking about a lot of things. We will not give a f*ck about anything when we have better things to worry about in life.

 

Or better things to feel happy about. We will stop worrying about little things. If you can follow these things and if you can understand, what are things that you should never give up? Your life will be awesome.

 

The biggest problem of our generation is we want to keep our options open.  We always feel that there is a better choice available, hence we don’t give importance to commitment.

 

We always keep our options concerning career and relationships thinking that there would be a better choice available. Though it is extremely positive on one side.

 

When we have a lot of options and choices, we can’t decide properly. Which leads to decision fatigue. So, we can’t be happy at all.

 

We want to do what we like and we need time for leisure. And we want to chat with neighbors for some time without driving them away.

 

And we also want to keep up with an appointment, but how is it possible to do all of this? It is not possible. So, we should learn to say no at some point.

 

Our life will be perfect if we learn to say no at a certain point concerning life and relationships. We want to do everything, please everyone, and keep everyone happy. We won’t able to do anything because of the mess.

 

When we experience break-ups or when we are down in life, we come across several motivational quotes. Which emphasizes that you are special and that the world and the things in it belong to you.

 

Which gives a different high for us. This is actually unnecessary for us. These are like food items with empty calories.

 

Don’t ever take this to your heart. The actual truth is you are not special at all. A lot of people have been there before you. And all those people have lived with their own set of problems.

 

There are a lot of people like you when this is the case. You are not very special. You are ordinary. All of us are the same. If you want to feel special, you do something about it.

 

Don’t read such useless quotes and feel good about it.  Research says after a man fulfills his basic needs of food, water, shelter, and people. The additional things we get beyond that will never make us happy.  

 

Our happiness will be fulfilled with our basic needs. Anything beyond that is like a rat race. Our search will never end.

 

And we will never be satisfied. In today’s stressful times, we are never truly happy. But we are still searching for happiness because instead of comparing with our own past, we compare with others.

 

So, we are never truly happy. Don’t evaluate your growth based on materialistic things or career growth. Evaluate your growth based on values, for that, we need better values.

 

We will certainly miss certain things in life even if we are very rich. Even if I am a multi-millionaire who has settled abroad. I am going to miss the chat shop near my home.

 

You are going to miss something in your life all the time. So, make sure that you miss the right things. Miss all those things which are unnecessary, and don’t miss out on all that is necessary.

 

In the Philippines when war broke out in a forest During the second world war. One person met fought with the tribes.

 

He hid in the forest and fought for 27 years, even after the war had ended. He didn’t even know that the war had ended.

 

A single-minded focus without understanding what we are doing is useless. Understand why you are doing something and see if your action aligns with your values.

 

Ask yourself whether you have to do a certain thing.  Then you will do the right thing at the right time which leads to the right consequences.

 

Poor guy was stuck in the forest for 27 years. He never knew that the war had ended. And was shell shocked when he was caught.

 

The book directly pinpoints our fallacies which hit me hard. My immediate thought was “why me?”

 

It felt like a direct accusation, but for some, the secret book might work out, for others this one might. A lot of people have told me that this book was life-changing.

 

The book “Secret” changed my life. So I am not sure what might work for you, probably if you hate the other self-help books.

 

This book might be the right choice for you.