The Subtle Art of Not Giving A F*ck by Mark Manson | Book Summary | Free Audiobook by StoryShots

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The Subtle Art of Not Giving A F*ck by Mark Manson: A Counterintuitive Approach to Living a Good Life by Mark Manson Book Summary
About Mark Manson
Mark Manson is an American self-help author and blogger. He started his first blog on dating advice in 2008. It became hugely popular and gained hundreds of thousands of readers. In 2009, Manson decided to travel the world for the next seven years while working remotely. He ended up visiting more than 65 countries. In 2010, he started a new blog called Post Masculine which provided general life advice for men. On this blog, he posted an article under the same name as this book. The article was so well received he decided to turn it into a book. The Subtle Art of Not Giving a F*ck went on to become a New York Times best seller. 

Manson has been featured on NBC, CNN, Fox News, the BBC and Time magazine. In October 2018, Penguin Random House announced that Manson would work with Will Smith to write the actor's autobiography. Manson’s work has been translated into more than 60 languages.

Introduction

The Subtle Art of Not Giving a F*ck is designed to help clarify what you choose to find important in your life, essentially what you choose to give a f*ck about. We often don’t realize how frequently we’re giving a f*ck about something that doesn’t matter. Manson aims to help you spot when you are placing too much importance on self-help ideas and how to start giving a f*ck about the most important things. 

The book has sold over 13 million copies. According to Amazon, The Subtle Art of Not Giving a F*ck was the most-read nonfiction book in 2017.

Chapter 1: Don’t Try

“Our culture today is obsessively focused on unrealistically positive expectations: Be happier. Be healthier. Be the best, better than the rest. Be smarter, faster, richer, sexier, more popular, more productive, more envied, and more admired. Be perfect and amazing and crap out twelve-karat-gold nuggets before breakfast each morning while kissing your selfie-ready spouse and two and a half kids goodbye. Then fly your helicopter to your wonderfully fulfilling job, where you spend your days doing incredibly meaningful work that’s likely to save the planet one day.” - Mark Manson

Manson starts his book by telling the story of the famous American author Charles Bukowski. Before he became famous, Bukowski was an alcoholic gambler who was frequently rejected by publishers. It was not until Bukowski turned 50 that an editor finally accepted a piece of his work. The public and media described his story as the American dream. But Bukowski knew the reality: He was still a loser. He wasn’t a best-selling author. He was fine with this, though. This self-acceptance is what drew so many people to him and his books. Bukowski has the words “Don’t try” written on his gravestone. 

This approach is entirely different from modern society’s expectations of how we can become happier, richer, healthier and more successful by merely wanting it. Manson believes this approach means we will feel like we are never enough. Society wants us to care about everything all the time. Manson suggests we only put effort into the most important and immediate events in our lives. True happiness is caring only about essential matters.

Don’t Try is summarized by the Backwards Law which was introduced by the British philosopher Alan Watts. The idea is that the more you pursue feeling better, the less satisfied you become. Constantly pursuing satisfaction will reinforce that you lack it in the first place. Manson rephrases this as:

The pursuit of positive experience is itself a negative experience.
The acceptance of negative experience is itself a positive experience.

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The Subtle Art of Not Giving A F*ck by Mark Manson: A Counterintuitive Approach to Living a Good Life by Mark Manson Book Summary

About Mark Manson

Mark Manson is an American self-help author and blogger. He started his first blog on dating advice in 2008. It became hugely popular and gained hundreds of thousands of readers. In 2009, Manson decided to travel the world for the next seven years while working remotely. He ended up visiting more than 65 countries. In 2010, he started a new blog called Post Masculine which provided general life advice for men. On this blog, he posted an article under the same name as this book. The article was so well received he decided to turn it into a book. The Subtle Art of Not Giving a F*ck went on to become a New York Times best seller. 

Manson has been featured on NBC, CNN, Fox News, the BBC and Time magazine. In October 2018, Penguin Random House announced that Manson would work with Will Smith to write the actor's autobiography. Manson’s work has been translated into more than 60 languages.

Introduction

The Subtle Art of Not Giving a F*ck is designed to help clarify what you choose to find important in your life, essentially what you choose to give a f*ck about. We often don’t realize how frequently we’re giving a f*ck about something that doesn’t matter. Manson aims to help you spot when you are placing too much importance on self-help ideas and how to start giving a f*ck about the most important things. 

The book has sold over 13 million copies. According to Amazon, The Subtle Art of Not Giving a F*ck was the most-read nonfiction book in 2017.

Chapter 1: Don’t Try

“Our culture today is obsessively focused on unrealistically positive expectations: Be happier. Be healthier. Be the best, better than the rest. Be smarter, faster, richer, sexier, more popular, more productive, more envied, and more admired. Be perfect and amazing and crap out twelve-karat-gold nuggets before breakfast each morning while kissing your selfie-ready spouse and two and a half kids goodbye. Then fly your helicopter to your wonderfully fulfilling job, where you spend your days doing incredibly meaningful work that’s likely to save the planet one day.” - Mark Manson

Manson starts his book by telling the story of the famous American author Charles Bukowski. Before he became famous, Bukowski was an alcoholic gambler who was frequently rejected by publishers. It was not until Bukowski turned 50 that an editor finally accepted a piece of his work. The public and media described his story as the American dream. But Bukowski knew the reality: He was still a loser. He wasn’t a best-selling author. He was fine with this, though. This self-acceptance is what drew so many people to him and his books. Bukowski has the words “Don’t try” written on his gravestone. 

This approach is entirely different from modern society’s expectations of how we can become happier, richer, healthier and more successful by merely wanting it. Manson believes this approach means we will feel like we are never enough. Society wants us to care about everything all the time. Manson suggests we only put effort into the most important and immediate events in our lives. True happiness is caring only about essential matters.

Don’t Try is summarized by the Backwards Law which was introduced by the British philosopher Alan Watts. The idea is that the more you pursue feeling better, the less satisfied you become. Constantly pursuing satisfaction will reinforce that you lack it in the first place. Manson rephrases this as:

The pursuit of positive experience is itself a negative experience.

The acceptance of negative experience is itself a positive experience.

So, you can create positive experiences through the tolerance of negative experiences. 

Manson ends the chapter by describing his Give a F*ck Framework. This framework identifies what to sacrifice so you can choose the correct thing to give a f*ck about.

The Give a F*ck Framework

Here are the three subtleties in the Give a F*ck Framework:

Subtlety #1 - Not Giving a F*ck Doesn’t Mean Being Indifferent; It Means Being Comfortable With Being Different

The lesson to take from this chapter isn’t that you should give a f*ck about nothing. According to Manson, claiming you don’t give a f*ck about anything is false. With this example, you would still be giving a f*ck about not giving a f*ck about anything. So, Manson suggests that you instead give a f*ck about a few important things, allowing you to care less about the other unimportant things.

Here’s the second subtlety:

Subtlety #2 - To Not Give a F*ck About Adversity, You Must First Give a F*ck About Something More Important Than Adversity

The only reason you might worry about adversity in your life is that you don’t have anything better to give a f*ck about. For example, if you are always worried about how much money you have, the issue is not how much money you have. Instead, it is simply that you don’t have something better to give a f*ck about.

Subtlety #3 - Whether You Realize It or Not, You Are Always Choosing What to Give a F*ck About

This is the first occasion that Manson introduces this subtlety. But he dives deep into it in chapter 5.

Chapter 2: Happiness Is a Problem

Self-help books often focus on the goal of constant happiness. Manson suggests this idea is harmful. As humans, we are naturally slightly unhappy. Manson highlights this point by talking about Dukha, which is a Buddhist principle that claims that life is suffering. Self-help books are merely attempting to change this natural expression of emotions. Doing this achieves nothing; we are supposed to experience unhappiness. It helps us push on and look to achieve genuine success. 

According to Manson, individuals who are sold a self-help notion of happiness will struggle to counteract their negative emotions. So, they will likely find unhealthy habits to deal with these negative emotions. Doing this will only send the individual deeper into the loop of unhappiness. 

Instead, Manson recommends you accept reality as it is. Take responsibility for your emotions and understand that tackling negative emotions is a daily struggle. Problems never stop; they just change. Manson applies this to the psychological concept called the “hedonic treadmill.” This is the idea that once we acquire what we believe will make us happy, we just find another problem. So, we should be aiming to solve problems in our lives rather than avoid them. We should not be aiming for a life without problems but a life full of good problems.

“A more interesting question, a question that most people never consider, is, ‘What pain do you want in your life? What are you willing to struggle for?’ Because that seems to be a greater determinant of how our lives turn out.” - Mark Manson

Chapter 3: You Are Not Special

“All of this ‘every person can be extraordinary and achieve greatness’ stuff is basically just jerking off your ego. It’s a message that tastes good going down, but in reality is nothing more than empty calories that make you emotionally fat and bloated. The proverbial Big Mac for your heart and your brain.” - Mark Manson

Manson believes that self-help books and modern society are obsessed with the idea that we are all unique. This idea has created a society of entitled people who expect everything to go right for them all the time. Entitlement is feeling as though you deserve to be happy without sacrificing for it. There are two types of entitlement:

Grandiose narcissism, which is like saying: I’m awesome and the rest of you all suck, so I deserve special treatment.

Victim narcissism, which is like saying: I suck and the rest of you are all awesome, so I deserve special treatment.

Both of these types of narcissism end up the same as they behave in the same way. Both types are deluded about where they lie in the social hierarchy. They both think everything should be catered to benefit them and are completely self-absorbed.

A study from the late 1960s correlated positive self-image with accomplishments in life. Based on this study’s findings, policymakers started to use things like participation prizes and unattainable goals to try to motivate children. Manson believes this single study has created a society that does not accept reality. The issue with not accepting reality is that people no longer use their problems as a stepping stone toward their success. 

For Manson, success is not the product of high self-esteem. Success is the product of a constant need to improve. 

Chapter 4: The Value of Suffering

“Everything worthwhile in life is won through surmounting the associated negative experience. Any attempt to escape the negative, to avoid it or quash it or silence it, only backfires. The avoidance of suffering is a form of suffering. The avoidance of struggle is a struggle. The denial of failure is a failure. Hiding what is shameful is itself a form of shame.” - Mark Manson

Many Japanese soldiers ended up stranded on many of the Pacific Islands during the second world war. These soldiers were cut off from the rest of the world. So, they did not know that the war had ended. As a result, they continued to fight the war into the 1950s, 60s and 70s. It did not matter how strong, intelligent or motivated these soldiers were; they were destined to fail. Manson uses this analogy to highlight that without the correct values and goals leading your actions, you are f*cked.

The Scientific Method and Happiness

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Manson believes that life and happiness are related to the scientific method. Your values are hypotheses, your actions are experiments and the outcomes are data. So, we should make smart decisions based on results rather than fear, doubt or uncertainty. Uncertainty is a vital rung in the ladder to success, and we should not fear it. Uncertainty is what allows us to learn more. Uncertainty helps us understand our values are imperfect, so it guards us against extremist ideology. It also removes the judgment and stereotyping of other people.

Values and Happiness

Your deepest emotions are related to your values. And the values you fight for determine who you are. Good values are vital for your happiness, but we often focus on bad values. Chasing empty pleasure and believing that you are always right are examples of bad values. Good values are reality-based, internally achieved and socially constructive. A great example of a good value is honesty. You can better deal with your daily problems if you adopt good values. 

As mentioned, one of the most common bad values is pleasure. Many people prioritize pleasure in their lives, but chasing pleasure as a value in your life is unhealthy. Manson explains that drug addicts, adulterers, and gluttons are all motivated by pleasure as a value. Material success is also a widespread bad value. If we use material success as a value, we will always compare ourselves to someone who’s richer than us. So, we will continue to pursue wealth at whatever cost. 

To support this point, Manson offers the example of guitarist Dave Mustaine. In 1983, he was kicked out of Metallica just before their big break. Mustaine spent the next two years perfecting his guitar skills. He was then able to start the band Megadeth, which would sell over 25 million records. But this success was not enough. Mustaine continued to compare himself to Metallica, who have sold over 125 million records. This meant he was still unhappy. Manson then compares Mustaine to Pete Best. Best was also kicked out of a world-renowned band: The Beatles. Watching The Beatles’ success did leave Best depressed for a while. But he ended up far happier than Mustaine because he came to a simple realization: music is more important than success. Mustaine had bad values, while Best had good values. 

“Who you are is defined by what you’re willing to struggle for.” - Mark Manson

While bad values are tied to suffering, Manson believes that a certain amount of suffering is unavoidable. This means we should identify a job we enjoy so much that we don’t mind the daily moments of suffering that are inevitable. Manson provides an example from his own life of how his passions help him push through daily suffering. Manson enjoyed writing about dating and subsequently started a dating-advice blog. He struggled at first, and he suffered through hard work and failure. But his enjoyment trumped this suffering. Manson persevered and his blog gained hundreds of thousands of subscribers. He was then able to make it his full-time job. So, Manson recommends deciding the things in life that you want to suffer for. 

“We suffer for the simple reason that suffering is biologically useful. It is nature’s preferred agent for inspiring change. We have evolved to always live with a certain degree of dissatisfaction and insecurity, because it’s the mildly dissatisfied and insecure creature that’s going to do the most work to innovate and survive.” - Mark Manson