There comes a time in life when one is stuck. But when one looks deeply inside themselves, they found they are the ones who have stuck themselves.
But how does one come to such a conclusion?
A new perspective can only come from reading someone another person’s thoughts.
This book, The Subtle Art of Not Giving a F*ck:A counterintuitive Approach To Living A Good Life by Mark Manson is an eye-opener, as it rightly boasts, a counterintuitive approach to living a good life.
The good life, that does not give a fuck, that Mark Manson preaches is one that fiercely looks at life rationally.
In my younger years, I read a lot and thought I was always right about everything. I would argue for hours about a certain past thing and will hold it in my heart for days even years that the person counter-arguing with me is wrong. That they don’t have half the brains. I am the greatest.
As I grew older I found out I was wrong, our brains interpret things differently, and sometimes one can see a car that is passing to be blue, while in the true sense it is grey. Or the brain just wants to assign its colours as memories.
Though a trivial explanation, I learnt a lot from Mark Manson’s ‘You’re wrong about everything’ chapter.
Life is about happiness and fulfilment, but then again, seeking only happiness is wrong. You will not always be happy and that’s fine.
Before you accuse me or him or ‘what about a person’s personality and history being important for the way forward?’ let me tell you, he covers that satisfactorily with living in the moment, concentrating on a few things and rewarding oneself with the beauty of commitment.
Certainty locks us out from opportunity. Certainty is surely the enemy of growth. Growth is an endless iterative process, but don’t kill yourself yet for being so sure of yourself and when things turn out different you feel like dying. No, he says, ‘when we learn something new, we don’t go from right to wrong,’ we go from wrong, to slightly less wrong’.
Refreshing.
Bigger lesson: One must have problems in life, but live you must and also you should strive for good problems to solve.
Do not close yourself to new information. Cultivate constant doubt in your own beliefs. There’s value in suffering. (get the book and read)
Stop giving a fuck about everything. Give a fuck about something, focus on quality few things.
Responsibility and fault are not the same. A fault happens and it becomes the past, it is your responsibility to choose how to react.
Take this example, ‘nobody else is ever responsible for your unhappiness but you’.
In the last chapter, the importance of saying no’, Manson appears to be giving a fuck. But then again, accompanying the book title, there’s a brief explanation he gives somewhere in the book. He says, ‘not giving a fuck about anything is in itself giving a fuck’.
Everything boils down to the end of life. Here I agree, because, I changed my life from a loser to a go-getter when I thought of death first, removed its fear from my soul, then I rolled back and started living. My life opened up.
Always be aware of the fact that you’ll soon die. And death is a must.
Some people make the lives of others a living hell by forgetting this factor of death. They think they are the emperors of all lives. Don’t be one of them.
You are not that special.
We are, for the most part, pretty average people. All of us!
Thank you Nuria Store for this book.
