The Subtle Art of Not giving a F*ck - Mark Manson

A counterintuitive approach to living a good life as the cover page say, this book was with me for some time, but kept postponing reading it. 

Divided broadly into 9 chapters, ending with Then you die, it starts with telling us 'Don't Try'.

"The desire for more positive experience is itself a negative experience and paradoxically, the acceptance of ones negative experience is itself a positive experience. "

Bulb on!

The person who finds no emotion or meaning in anything is a psychopath. The purpose of the book is not to tell you to be one. 

The subtleties, that clarifies the title are:

1. Not giving a fuck does not mean being indifferent; it means being comfortable, with being different.
2. To not give a fuck about adversity, you must first give a fuck about something more important than adversity.
3. Whether you realize it or not, you are always choosing what to give a fuck about.

Whatever your problems are, the concept is the same, solve problems; be happy. Unfortunately, for many people, life doesn't feel that simple. That's because they fuck things up in at least one of the two ways - denial or victim mentality. 

We are not special. Entitlement complex is a tough situation to be in. Self Awareness is like an onion, there are layers to it, and you need to peel one after the other to realise your true self. We are always choosing. and is always wrong about everything. OCD is a terrible neurological and genetic disorder that cannot be cured, but can be managed by accepting the imperfections of compulsive desire. 

Many of the relationships in life are built around values, the moment you change your values - your turnaround will reverberate out through your relationships and many of them will blow up in your face. This is normal and uncomfortable. These are necessary, though painful. We need to be careful about what we believe. 

We have heard of Parkinson's law " Work expands so as to fill up the time available for its completion."; Murphy's law "Whatever can go wrong will go wrong". There is also Manson's law of avoidance:

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

Good or bad.  Breed little more uncertainty in life by asking:

1. What if I am wrong?
2. What would it mean if I were wrong?
3. Would being wrong create a better or a worse problem than my current problem, for both myself and others?

Learn to say no, rejections make life better, build trust, there is freedom in commitment too. 

Seek the truth for yourself. 

The book 'The Denial of Death' make two points:

1. Humans are unique , we're the only animal that can conceptualize and think about ourselves abstractly.  This realisation causes what Becker calls "death terror", a deep existential anxiety that underlies everything we think or do.
2. We have two "selves" Physical and Conceptual. 

All the meaning in our life is shaped by this innate desire to never truly die. 

What is your legacy?