Title: The Subtle Art of Not Giving a Fck: A Counterintuitive Approach to Living a Good Life*
Author: Mark Manson
Audiobook read by: Roger Wayne
Audiobook publisher: HarperAudio
Audiobook duration: 05:17:37
Rating: ★★☆☆☆ (Meh, could have been better)
Review:
I am a person that gives a f*ck about everything, which is why I was excited to pick up this book. It started off extremely promising and I thought I was going to have to buy a physical copy to reread. The narrator was vulgar but charismatic, so he came off as incredibly funny. However, this did not last, and by chapter 2, he became an annoying know-it-all who constantly bragged about all the women he banged and pronounced Oregon as “Ore-gone” (this last point isn’t Manson’s fault since he did not read his own audiobook, but maybe it is a little bit of his fault for choosing not to narrate his own book!)
Manson did introduce two concepts that piqued my interest. The first being the feedback loop from hell. He describes the loop as when we feel angry about being angry and feel anxious about being anxious. I often feel bad about feeling any negative emotions. For example, when I was annoyed that the restaurant forgot to put guacamole in my super burrito even though I did not make any customization to a menu item, I would then get annoyed at myself for getting annoyed at something so small and insignificant. This feedback loop ends up making me feel overly stressed and overly self-loathing.
The other concept that I liked was that not giving a fck does not mean that you do not care. I definitely do not want anyone to feel like I do not care about them, but ultimately, if I give a fck about everything, then I do not have anything important to give a f*ck about in the first place. Other than those two concepts, I cannot remember anything else covered in this book because I completely lost interest by chapter three. Manson would tell people how they should think but does not always back this up with any research or anecdotes. I believe that personal stories would support the life lessons he proposes better and also make his content more distinctive. However, the only personal story he shares is the one about how much of a player he was; and he shares that story quite often throughout the book. Since the ideas he covers in this book are not unique, I will definitely recommend looking into similar books by less obnoxious authors.
Notable Quotes:
- “Who you are is defined by what you’re willing to struggle for.”
- “Maturity is what happens when one learns to only give a fck about what’s truly fckworthy.”
- “In my life, I have given a fck about many people and many things. I have also not given a fck about many people and many things. And like the road not taken, it was the f*cks not given that made all the difference.”
- “Life is essentially an endless series of problems. The solution to one problem is merely the creation of another.”
- “To be happy we need something to solve. Happiness is therefore a form of action.”