The Subtle Art of Not Giving a F*ck - By Mark Manson

 

 The subtle art of not giving a fuck, A counterintuitive approach to living a good life, by Mark Manson

The book attracts readers by it's title ofcourse. At first I thought it would be a funny story with some self help lessons. But turns out to be a serious approach. 

It seems Mark is trying to dig deep into everything and find an optimal balance which doesn't really work and requires continuous reframing and improvising.

It's better to see the big picture than to zoom in and struggle to reach to the edges.  Many concepts put very well into the book but are essentially incomplete.

There is this urge to criticize his work in the beginning but as you go on reading you find some serious shit hitting you hard on face.

Things you feel and experience in your day to day life but never really paid attention on their patterns are the things Mark highlights in the book. Few of them are Feedback loop from hell, Values-metric-measuring units, Fault/ Responsibility fallacy, Failure/Success paradox, Do Something Principle and few others.

Chapter 1 is all about accepting yourself and being comfortable with being different

Chapter 2 says you are alive here to solve problems. Choosing your problems or pain and solving them is called Happiness and not the result you get after solving.

Chapter 4 gives you values to measure and metric to compare your success rate and overall life. It defines good and bad values.

Chapter 5 is the major content of this book. It talks about Choice you are making every single moment either consciously or unconsciously. And Mark specifies The Choices in 4 major aspects- Fault and responsibility, Responding to tragedy, Genetics and hand we're dealt and Victim-hood.

Mark explains how you alone are responsible for every situation you face in above circumstances and reasons you should shift your thought process.

Chapter 6 says you're wrong about everything and asks you to question your beliefs every now and then because ofcourse belief system makes sense only if it keeps evolving. Referring to Parkinson's Law and Murphy's Law, Mark is trying to give readers a brand new Manson's Law which doesn't make a sense.

Because he says you avoid things which threatens your identity whereas fact is you can never define your identity unless you are an enlightened being. May be he is talking about the artificial identity that you create around yourself to look presentable (or to hide your shit)

Mark warns you not to believe every cooked up story your mind is trying to tell you and asks you to find clarity in confusion by not being certain about anything. Which I liked because if you are certain and know things before hand what's the point living... makes sense right!

Chapter 7 and 8 gives you some motivation and helps overcome failures and pain, giving and receiving a "NO", freedom which binds you and binding which liberates you, rejection handling, rebuilding trust, freedom from commitment and so on.

In Chapter 9 Mark wants you not to avoid and to acknowledge Death because it's the only certain thing we know about our life that, we all one day Die.

He briefs on his friend's death and how he transformed himself.

But again it's incomplete and shallow.

No, you can not put death into words especially in some vague 25 pages , not untill you have died once!

Yes it's an amazing book for beginners of self help readers, young adults, emotionally frustrated beings! but I personally don't completely agree with some interpretation of concepts.

So we are at the end of my review, I would like to give it a  4/5 for concepts and his experiences & efforts combined.