Mark Manson’s *The Subtle Art of Not Giving a F*ck: A Counterintuitive Approach to Living a Good Life* is ostensibly about not giving said f*ck, but it’s really about figuring out what you do care about. Manson exhorts the reader to sever ties to the notion that seeking happiness will lead to it, and to, as the Marines say, “embrace the suck.”
One of Manson’s most useful recommendation in terms of finding a semblance of happiness is to spend your time doing what you would do if you didn’t have to:
True happiness occurs only when you find the problems you enjoy having and enjoy solving.
Manson is at odds with the idea that life can be sunshine and roses all day; in his calculus, you will encounter suffering no matter how hard you try to avoid it. Simply thinking about how things could be better, in effect, makes you less happy. How are we to deal with this? Find out what version of struggle you would take on irrespective of need.
What determines your success isn’t, “What do you want to enjoy?” The relevant question is, “What pain do you want to sustain?” The path to happiness is a path full of shitheaps and shame.
In fact, it’s in the encountering of problems that we find meaning:
Problems add a sense of meaning and importance to our life.
It’s internal control, rather than external, that provides meaning. Steer your own ship, in a sense.
Manson lets the reader know that trying to be exceptional, as well, is likely to lead to less, not more, happiness. Manson wants you to know that it’s OK to be average:
This sort of thinking is dangerous. Once you accept the premise that a life is worthwhile only if it is truly notable and great, then you basically accept the fact that most of the human population (including yourself) sucks and is worthless. And this mindset can quickly turn dangerous, to both yourself and others.
Manson cautions the reader to avoid finding meaning from things beyond our control. Take popularity:
Popularity, on the other hand, is a bad value. If that’s your value, and if your metric is being the most popular guy/girl at the dance party, much of what happens will be out of your control: you don’t know who else will be at the event, and you probably won’t know who half those people are. Second, the value/metric isn’t based on reality: you may feel popular or unpopular, when in fact you have no fucking clue what anybody else really thinks about you.
Manson rejects the Platonic notion of self-knowledge; you will be far happier if you reject making decisions based on who you think you are and experiment–and fail.
I say don’t find yourself. I say never know who you are. Because that’s what keeps you striving and discovering. And it forces you to remain humble in your judgments and accepting of the differences in others.
There is much more to the book, including Manson’s ultimate test–accepting mortality and measuring everything you find important against this inevitability. There’s a lot to ponder. There’s also plenty of Stoicism and shades of both Nietzsche and Existentialism in the book. But it’s not about caring less. It’s about caring about the things that will give you a greater sense of satisfaction with your life. That’s, at least, what Manson is shooting for.