Lessons Learned from Reading 'The Subtle Art of Not Giving a Fuck'

First off, let’s talk about the title of the book. Did it grab your attention? Probably… It’s not every day you see the word “Fuck” in the title of a NYT Bestseller. Mark did this on purpose. It’s interesting, confusing, intriguing and polarizing. Kinda makes you wonder what’s in it, right? Regardless of whether you think it’s clever or distasteful, it’s working. The Subtle Art of Not Giving a F*ck is the most downloaded audible book EVER (according to Mark Manson).

The book is not about becoming an apathetic care-free zombie similar to Ron Livingston’s character in Office Space. It’s about CHOOSING what you should care about, and what you shouldn’t and how to stay true to that.

Mark talks about how happiness is achieved by solving problems. Positive emotions come from making progress in solving your problems. Negative emotions spawn out of unsolved problems in your life. The formula is simple; identify a stressor, identify the problem causing stress, identify actions you can take to solve that problem. Eliminating problems will make you happier, according to the author.

Perfectionism is something that I think a lot of humans suffer from. Generally, we are too hard on ourselves and a lot of us suffer from something that Mark calls “Metallica Syndrome.” Here is the story behind that term. Dave Mustaine was the first guitarist in the world-famous heavy metal band “Metallica.” He was kicked out of the band a week before they recorded their first album. He promised them that they would rue the day they kicked him out of the band. He went on to start a band by the name of “Megadeath.” He sold out stadiums, toured the world, made millions of dollars, and achieved massive success. Yet, Dave still felt like a failure because Megadeath had “only” sold 25 million albums and Metallica sold 180 million albums. The lesson here is not to believe that happiness is on the other side of a certain level of success. Enough is never enough, so it’s best to learn now that you can be happy no matter where you are in your life.

If you think your abilities or material possessions are what define you, then when circumstances change, you will be lost. There will always be someone better than you or have more than you. For instance, Inky Johnson was a great football player and was going to be a top 30 draft pick right out of college. He had worked his entire life to be the best football player he could be and he was just 10 college games away from being drafted to the NFL and becoming a multi-millionaire. He was badly injured on one of his last college games and received nerve damage that would prevent him from playing football ever again. He had to have surgery and after the surgery his doctor told him he would be in his hospital bed for the next 40 days. Inky walked out of the hospital on the third day and when the doctor asked how he did it, Inky’s response was “I would never let a circumstance or a situation define my life.” Inky had invested “sweat equity” into his life and the process was far more important than the final product. So, even though he put all his effort into becoming the best football player, the lessons he learned along the way were far more valuable and that’s what defined him as a person, not his ability to play football. Inky is now hired to speak at events for notable organizations and companies including Wells Fargo and AT&T.

Action leads to motivation. Measure your success by the actions you take to reach a goal, not by the outcome. If my goal was to lose 20 pounds, and I went to the gym 3 times in a week and only lost half a pound, I wouldn’t be very motivated to keep going because I’m measuring my success by how close I am to achieving my goal. Instead, I should be delighted that I made it to the gym 3 times in one week because I didn’t go at all the week before. As long as I continue to take action, and measure my success by actions taken, then I will stay motivated.

All in all, this is a good book. I think it is a bit “over-hyped” simply because of the title. It has good values and good advice for the most part. If you are new to “self-help” I highly recommend this to start you on the path to becoming a better “you.” If you have been a subscriber to “self-help” books for a while, it is still a good read and a good book to refresh your memory to help you focus on some areas that you may be lacking in.

I give this book four out of five stars.