And because you and I and everybody else all have differing needs and personal histories and life circumstances, we will all inevitably come to differing correct answers about what our lives mean and how they should be lived.

The majority of life is unextraordinary, indeed quite average.Having the Internet, social media sites and hundred plus TV channels is amazing. But this flood of extreme information has conditioned us to believe that exceptionalism is the new normal.Technology and mass marketing is screwing up alot of peoples expectations.We end up feeling like losers because a simple Google search shows us thousands of people without the same problems as us. Technology has solved old economic problems by giving us new psychological problems. The Internet has opensourced insecurity, self doubt and shame.

The Tyranny Of Exceptionalism

The victim creates more and more problems to solve - not because additional real problems exist, but because it gets her attention and affection she craves.The saver solves and solves - not because she actually cares about the problems, but because she believes she must fix others' problems in order to deserve attention and affection for herself. In both cases, the intentions are selfish and conditional and therefore self-sabotaging, and genuine love is rarely experienced.

The more something threatens your identity, the more you will avoid it.

If everyone were extraordinary, then by definition no one would be extraordinary.

If you've got a problem, chances are millions of other people have had it in the past, have it now, and are going to in the future. This doesn't minimise your problem, it just means that you are not special.The first step towards solving your problems is to acknowledge the realisation that your problems are actually not privileged in their severity and pain.When we experience real traumatic shit, we believe we are uniquely special, that we are somehow unlike everyone else, that the rules are different for us.We become entitled.

You Are Not Special

It is the norm in Western cultures to smile and say polite things even when you don't feel like it, to tell white lies and agree with someone you don't actually agree with. People learn to pretend to be friends with people they don't actually like.The downside of this is that you never know if you can completely trust the person you're talking to. There is a pressure in the West to be likable that people often reconfigure their entire personality depending on the person they're dealing with.Honesty is a natural human craving. Part of living honestly is becoming comfortable with the word 'NO'.

The Importance Of Saying No

This self help guide teaches us that the key to being happier is to stop trying to be positive all the time and instead to become better at handling adversity.FUCK POSITIVITY!Sometimes things are fucked up and we have to accept it.This book will correct your delusional expectations of yourself and the world. Its like a guide to suffering better, more meaningfully with compassion and humility.I recommend it to anybody stuck in the feedback loop from hell, which is the psychological epidemic making many of us overly stressed, overly neurotic and overly self loathing.

A Book About Hope 

Suffering is biologically useful as it is natures preferred agent for inspiring change. We are wired to become dissatisfied with whatever we have and satisfied by only what we don't have.Problems will never fucking go away. They just get exchanged and upgraded. Life is an endless series of problems. The solution to one problem is merely the creation of the next one.Negative emotions are a call to action. If you feel crappy, your brain is telling you there is an unresolved problem for you to address.Happiness comes from solving these problems.

Happiness Is A Problem

Todays culture is obsessed with unrealistically positive expectations.<ul><li>Be happier</li><li>Be the best</li><li>Be smarter</li><li>Be richer</li><li>Be sexier</li><li>More powerful</li><li>More productive</li><li>More admired</li></ul>Be perfect and amazing and shit out 12 karat gold nuggets before breakfast while kissing your selfie ready partner before flying off to work in a helicopter to your wonderfully fulfilling job, where u spend the day doing incredibly meaningful work that will save the planet.Conventional life advice hightlights your percieved shortcomings and failures, resulting in you feeling like a failure as though you aren't successful enough.

Dont Try

When any result is regarded as progress and important, we propel ourselves ahead. We feel free to fail and that failure moves us forward.The do something principle helps us to overcome procrastination. That something can be the smallest viable action toward something else. It can be anything.Just do something. Start simple. Thats all thats necessary to get the snowball rolling, the action needed to inspire the motivation to keep going.

Failure Is The Way Forward

No truly happy person feels the need to stand in front of the mirror and recite that she's happy. She just is.

Being open to your insecurities paradoxically makes you more confident and charismatic around others.

Honesty is communication with no conditions, no strings attached, no ulterior motive, no sales job, no desperate attempt to be liked.When things suck, you say so openly and without apology.

Most of us struggle through life giving way too many fucks in situations where fucks dont deserve to be given.Your going to die some day. In the short time you have here, if you go round giving a fuck about everything and everyone, you are going to get fucked.Learn to prioritise and pick and choose what is fuckworthy to you based on finely honed personal values.Its part of our biology to give a fuck but when you give too many fucks you become entitled to be comfortable and happy all the time, as if everything is supposed to be exactly the fucking way you want. This is a sickness.

The Subtle Art Of Not Giving A Fuck

Death is the only thing we can know with any certainty.

Without conflict, there can be no trust.Conflict exists to show us who is there for us unconditionally and who is just there for the benefits.

Reserve your fucks for what truly matters.

Decision making based on emotional intuition, without the aid of reason to keep it in line, pretty much always sucks. You know who bases their entire lives on their emotions? Three year old kids.And dogs.You know what else three year olds and dogs do? Shit on the carpet.

You stand in front of the mirror repeating affirmations saying that you're beautiful because you feel as though you're not beautiful already.

Values underlie everything we are and do.If what we value is unhelpful, if what we consider success/failure is poorly chosen, then everything based upon those values - the thoughts, emotions and day to day feelings - will be out of whack. Everything we think and feel about a situation ultimately comes back to how valuable we percieve it to be.

Life itself is a form of suffering. The rich suffer because of their riches. The poor suffer because of their poverty.People without a family suffer because they have no family. People with a family suffer because of their family.People who pursue wordly pleasures suffer because of their worldly pleasures.People who abstain from wordly pleasures suffer because of their abstention.

Nobody makes it through life without collecting a few scars along the way -<ul><li>Psychiatric disorders</li><li>Struggling with depression or suicidal thoughts</li><li>Having been subjected to abuse or neglect</li><li>Dealt with a tragedy or death of a loved one</li><li>Survived a serious heath issue</li><li>Accidents</li><li>Traumatic situations</li></ul>Nobody else is ever responsible for the situation you are in. Someone else may be to blame for your unhappiness, but nobody is ever responsible for your unhappiness except your self. This is because you always get to choose how you see things, how you react and how you value them.

Genetics And The Hand We're Dealt

People in a healthy relationship have strong boundaries and take responsibility for their own values and problems.People in a toxic relationship with poor or no boundaries will regularly avoid responsibility for their own problems and take responsibility for their partners problems.Entitled people expect others to take responsibility for their problems.'I want a nice relaxing break. You should have known and canceled your plans'.This is avoiding accepting responsibility for their own problems, resulting in fragile fake relationships.

Boundries

Ultimately, the only way to achieve meaning and a sense of importance in ones life is through a rejection of alternatives, a narrowing of freedom, a choice of commitment to one place, one belief or (gulp) one person.

In life we have a limited amount of fucks to give. Time ticks away. So choose your fucks wisely. A book worth gifting, to your self, and to those around you.

#1 New York Times Bestseller Over 1 million copies sold In this generation-defining self-help guide, a superstar blogger cuts through the crap to show us how to stop trying to be "positive" all the time so that we can truly become better, happier people. For decades, we’ve been told that positive thinking is the key to a happy, rich life. "F**k positivity," Mark Manson says. "Let’s be honest, shit is f**ked and we have to live with it." In his wildly popular Internet blog, Manson doesn’t sugarcoat or equivocate. He tells it like it is—a dose of raw, refreshing, honest truth that is sorely lacking today. The Subtle Art of Not Giving a F**k is his antidote to the coddling, let’s-all-feel-good mindset that has infected American society and spoiled a generation, rewarding them with gold medals just for showing up. Manson makes the argument, backed both by academic research and well-timed poop jokes, that improving our lives hinges not on our ability to turn lemons into lemonade, but on learning to stomach lemons better. Human beings are flawed and limited—"not everybody can be extraordinary, there are winners and losers in society, and some of it is not fair or your fault." Manson advises us to get to know our limitations and accept them. Once we embrace our fears, faults, and uncertainties, once we stop running and avoiding and start confronting painful truths, we can begin to find the courage, perseverance, honesty, responsibility, curiosity, and forgiveness we seek. There are only so many things we can give a f**k about so we need to figure out which ones really matter, Manson makes clear. While money is nice, caring about what you do with your life is better, because true wealth is about experience. A much-needed grab-you-by-the-shoulders-and-look-you-in-the-eye moment of real-talk, filled with entertaining stories and profane, ruthless humor, The Subtle Art of Not Giving a F**k is a refreshing slap for a generation to help them lead contented, grounded lives.

Understand yourself and those around you.

psychology

Psychology

personaldevelopment

Personal Development

mentalhealth

Mental Health

problemsolving

Problem Solving

communication

Communication

#1 New York Times BestsellerOver 10 million copies soldIn this generation-defining self-help guide, a superstar blogger cuts through the crap to show us how to stop trying to be "positive" all the time so that we can truly become better, happier people.For decades, we’ve been told that positive thinking is the key to a happy, rich life. "F**k positivity," Mark Manson says. "Let’s be honest, shit is f**ked and we have to live with it." In his wildly popular Internet blog, Manson doesn’t sugarcoat or equivocate. He tells it like it is—a dose of raw, refreshing, honest truth that is sorely lacking today. The Subtle Art of Not Giving a F**k is his antidote to the coddling, let’s-all-feel-good mindset that has infected American society and spoiled a generation, rewarding them with gold medals just for showing up.Manson makes the argument, backed both by academic research and well-timed poop jokes, that improving our lives hinges not on our ability to turn lemons into lemonade, but on learning to stomach lemons better. Human beings are flawed and limited—"not everybody can be extraordinary, there are winners and losers in society, and some of it is not fair or your fault." Manson advises us to get to know our limitations and accept them. Once we embrace our fears, faults, and uncertainties, once we stop running and avoiding and start confronting painful truths, we can begin to find the courage, perseverance, honesty, responsibility, curiosity, and forgiveness we seek.There are only so many things we can give a f**k about so we need to figure out which ones really matter, Manson makes clear. While money is nice, caring about what you do with your life is better, because true wealth is about experience. A much-needed grab-you-by-the-shoulders-and-look-you-in-the-eye moment of real-talk, filled with entertaining stories and profane, ruthless humor, The Subtle Art of Not Giving a F**k is a refreshing slap for a generation to help them lead contented, grounded lives.

Mark Manson (born 1984) is a professional blogger, entrepreneur, and former dating coach. Since 2007, he's been helping people with their emotional and relationship problems. He has worked with thousands of people from over 30 different countries. He regularly writes and updates his blog at: www.markmanson.net

MANSONS LAW OF AVOIDANCE

Similar ideas

Law Of Avoidance

The morally good true self: potential ethical downsides

“People like me aren’t good at this”