The Subtle Art of Not Giving a FK by Mark Manson
Kindle & Audible: US or CA
Morning Readers & Happy Monday!
We’re going to kick this week off with what has become my favorite self-help book so far. It’s an easy read, straight forward, and no bull, obviously. Mark Manson is refreshingly honest in his approach and now that I’ve read it, I can’t help but notice how many other people I follow and listen to on Youtube have riffed off of the concepts in this book since its publishing.
After reading this it really feels like ‘The Mountain is You‘ and ‘Burnout‘ were trying to touch on many of the same subjects and view points but where the others may have been just ok, Mark Manson knocks it out of the park with his hard-hitting honesty.
It wasn’t so much about which quotes I wanted to share as it was about how many I had to limit myself to. This book is sitting on my shelf and more than half of the pages have underlined sections, including what may just be my favorite opening line ever:
“Charles Bukowski was an alcoholic, a womanizer, a chronic gambler, a lout, a cheapskate, a deadbeat, and on his worst days, a poet.”
“Conventional life advice- all the positive and happy self-help stuff we hear all the time- is actually fixating on what you lack. It lasers in on what you perceive your personal shortcomings and failures to already be, and then emphasizes them for you.”
“We feel bad about feeling bad. We feel guilty for feeling guilty. We get angry about getting angry. What is wrong with me?… Our crisis is no longer material; it’s existential, it’s spiritual.”
“To not give a ‘hoot’ is to stare down life’s most terrifying and difficult challenges and still take action.”
“The only way to overcome pain is to first learn how to bear it…What determines your success isn’t, “What do you want to enjoy?”. The relevant question is, “What pain do you want to sustain?”… Our struggles determine our successes.”
“The premise is that happiness is algorithmic, that it can be worked for and earned and achieved. … To be happy we need something to solve. Happiness is therefore a form of action; it’s an activity, not something that is passively bestowed”
“Like physical pain, our psychological pain is an indication of something out of equilibrium, some limitation that has been exceeded…if you feel crappy it’s because your brain is telling you that there’s a problem that’s unaddressed or unresolved. In other words, negative emotions are a call to action. When you feel them, it’s because you’re supposed to do something. Positive emotions, on the other hand, are rewards for taking the proper action.”
Literally all of these quotes are within the first 40 pages. I would absolutely recommend reading this book and taking the time to journal and self-reflect as you go through it.
Bonus Recommendation: Go to Chat GPT, outline a problem you’re having and ask it to respond as Mark Manson. I was genuinely blown away at the new perspective.
Any other motivational books you’d recommend?
-Anna R.
*As always if you purchase through any of the links in this post, or throughout this blog, a small commission comes back to help support the page & what I do here!
Kindle & Audible: US or CA
The Weekend Readers 
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