Mark Manson’s book is a refreshing, funny and relatable improvement from common self-help mumbo jumbo.

Author: Mark Manson

Date Read: 2025-04-05

Genre: “Self help”

Rating: ⭐⭐

💎 Gems

  1. Limited amount of fucks to give
  2. Entitlement can show up in different ways
  3. Many options - say no
  4. Saying fuck is not a big deal

✍️ Personal Reflection

In general, I don’t like the concept of self-help or the idea of it that most people adopt from what I can tell. It seems as though self-help has become something that everyone should accept that they need because what they are is not sufficient. That they need to improve because their base level existence is not great in itself. This review is not for deep diving into this concept, but I want to give this disclaimer because I believe that Mark Manson’s “The Subtle Art of Not Giving A Fuck” transcends that category of literature. His book is for me what self-help should be. People sharing their own experience and perspectives that they have learned through experimentation and living life. It is not hiding behind weird abstractions or making it seem like this book is the answer to all the problems you might have. You can read it, enjoy it or not, take away something from it or not. The experience of reading the book is true to its title, it feels like the book does not give a fuck if you accept its content or not, and that is its value. To me. Apart from also being hilarious at points.

At some points I think the book is a bit messy and at some points it can be a bit repetitive but for what it seems to be aiming at I think it is a worthwhile book.

💭 Favorite Quotes

“No matter where you go, there’s a five-hundred-pound load of shit waiting for you”

Starting of with this quote only seems fair to Manson’s writing. I like it because from my experience in many cases it is not what you do but how you do it. There will also be road blocks to bump into or regrets being had about your choice. And in this day and age we have so many options that if you can find it in yourself to accept this truth then making those decisions may become a lot easier.

“greatness is merely an illusion in our minds, a made-up destination that we obligate ourselves to pursue, our own psychological Atlantis”

I generally agree with this, but actually I think that we can define greatness in a way that makes sense to us as humans and that we can pursue without desperation. To me, that is living a value-driven life where you figure out what you think is a good person to be, and you strive to be that. That is a great life, that is greatness to me. But the gist of the quote seems to be that you can get hung up on some idea that you pursue to fill some void which to me seems like a very common human experience.

“hope for a life of good problems”

To me, a re-statement of the first quote, but again, problems are not really problems, failures not really failures. Life is about working against death, about building while entropy is trying to do its thing. There is no way to beat the game. If you do, there will be a new game, and you want there to be, what else are you going to do?

“many people may be to blame for your unhappiness but nobody is ever responsible for your unhappiness but you”

Let’s be real. We are born into situations we had no say in. If you are not very lucky this will get you into some STICKY situations. And there is no point in trying to convince yourself you were not mistreated by people if that is your experience, but giving up your future to your past is not the solution.

“but we need to reject something or we stand for nothing”

I really have had to learn this the hard way. No matter how much you want to keep from hurting other people or hurting yourself you can not be a doormat to the world. This will kill your joy and turn all the colors into a soggy mess of gray. Having opinions and disagreements with people is what allows you to live a value-driven life of purpose, your purpose.

“Every step of the way I was wrong. About everything.”

Even when you really work on something for a long time you usually only realize more and more how little you know. This is a common saying for a reason. We use these words, wrong, failure, lose, and they have come to mean something they shouldn’t. The real win is to act, to try, to live and the proof that you are doing so is that you are losing, failing, being wrong. Accepting this allows us to act more. No one is superior in every way to someone else, everyone has a contribution, and we often misinterpret memory for intelligence.