/lit/ - Literature

Anybody here read this book?

> inb4 self help bullshit.

Yeah, I know, but Mark's prose is pretty good and this book gives a pretty new spin on improving your life.

Basically he says that most life advice is bad because it emphasizes what you lack, which causes you to feel inadequate. So for example, let's say a self help book tells you to not be scared when you're going into a job interview, and provides some meditation exercises to help you not be scared. In the short term, this may give you a feeling of confidence ("I'm armed with this awesome information on not being scared"), but then when you go into the interview and do get scared, you feel like a failure, which will reinforce your fear in future interviews.

What Manson recommends instead is to find what actually matters to you and pursuing that. You only have so many fucks to give and spending them on insecurities that other people or advertisements have placed in your head is a waste of time. So he says you need to learn to identify your actual values and filter out things you only care about because you're being manipulated by social pressure.

Essentially the title is a misnomer. The book isn't really about *NOT* giving a fuck, it's about finding out what you *SHOULD* give a fuck about. He emphasizes that pain is inevitable and suggests that finding out which types of pain you would welcome in your life will help you know what you really want, because if you see a form of pain as a blessing that's a good sign that it's implicitly tied to something you really want on a deep level. Essentially you need to know what kind of pain you want in your life. For example, if you have a crush on a girl, and thinking about talking to her heaviest and most painful issues gives you a weirdly motivated feeling, that's a sign that you really like her for the right reasons, because you actually want the inevitable hard parts of a relationship with her.

I dunno.

What do you think?

Just more self-help tripe or genuinely insightful?

I have to admit I'm finding some of his ideas intriguing

Stop wallowing in self-pity and read this book. It should help you get started on a good path.