The Subtle Art of Not Giving a F*ck: A Counterintuitive Approach to Living a Good Life QUOTES

121 " Uncertainty is the root of all progress and all growth. As the old adage goes, the man who believes he knows everything learns nothing. We cannot learn anything without first not knowing something. The more we admit we do not know, the more opportunities we gain to learn. "

― Mark Manson , The Subtle Art of Not Giving a F*ck: A Counterintuitive Approach to Living a Good Life

122 " In the long run, completing a marathon makes us happier than eating a chocolate cake. Raising a child makes us happier than beating a video game. Starting a small business with friends while struggling to make ends meet makes us happier than buying a new computer. These activities are stressful, arduous, and often unpleasant. They also require withstanding problem after problem. Yet they are some of the most meaningful moments and joyous things we’ll ever do. They involve pain, struggle, even anger and despair—yet once they’re accomplished, we look back and get all misty-eyed telling our grandkids about them. "

― Mark Manson , The Subtle Art of Not Giving a F*ck: A Counterintuitive Approach to Living a Good Life

123 " negative emotions are a call to action. When you feel them, it’s because you’re supposed to do something. Positive emotions, on the other hand, are rewards for taking the proper action. When you feel them, life seems simple and there is nothing else to do but enjoy it. "

― Mark Manson , The Subtle Art of Not Giving a F*ck: A Counterintuitive Approach to Living a Good Life

124 " To truly appreciate something, you must confine yourself to it. There’s a certain level of joy and meaning that you reach in life only when you’ve spent decades investing in a single relationship, a single craft, a single career. And you cannot achieve those decades of investment without rejecting the alternatives. "

― Mark Manson , The Subtle Art of Not Giving a F*ck: A Counterintuitive Approach to Living a Good Life

125 " We don’t always control what happens to us. But we always control how we interpret what happens to us, as well as how we respond. "

― Mark Manson , The Subtle Art of Not Giving a F*ck: A Counterintuitive Approach to Living a Good Life

126 " Remember, pain serves a purpose. "

― Mark Manson , The Subtle Art of Not Giving a F*ck: A Counterintuitive Approach to Living a Good Life

127 " Because when you give too many fucks—when you give a fuck about everyone and everything—you will feel that you’re perpetually entitled to be comfortable and happy at all times, that everything is supposed to be just exactly the fucking way you want it to be. This is a sickness. And it will eat you alive. You will see every adversity as an injustice, every challenge as a failure, every inconvenience as a personal slight, every disagreement as a betrayal. You will be confined to your own petty, skull-sized hell, burning with entitlement and bluster, running circles around your very own personal Feedback Loop from Hell, in constant motion yet arriving nowhere. The "

― Mark Manson , The Subtle Art of Not Giving a F*ck: A Counterintuitive Approach to Living a Good Life

128 " Certainty is the enemy of growth. Nothing "

― Mark Manson , The Subtle Art of Not Giving a F*ck: A Counterintuitive Approach to Living a Good Life

129 " It’s strange that in an age when we are more connected than ever, entitlement seems to be at an all-time high. Something about recent technology seems to allow our insecurities to run amok like never before. The more freedom we’re given to express ourselves, the more we want to be free of having to deal with anyone who may disagree with us or upset us. The more exposed we are to opposing viewpoints, the more we seem to get upset that those other viewpoints exist. The easier and more problem-free our lives become, the more we seem to feel entitled for them to get even better. "

― Mark Manson , The Subtle Art of Not Giving a F*ck: A Counterintuitive Approach to Living a Good Life

130 " See, I couldn’t control her. No matter how many times I called her, or screamed at her, or begged her to take me back, or made surprise visits to her place, or did other creepy and irrational ex-boyfriend things, I could never control her emotions or her actions. Ultimately, while she was to blame for how I felt, she was never responsible for how I felt. I was. At some point, after enough tears and alcohol, my thinking began to shift and I began to understand that although she had done something horrible to me and she could be blamed for that, it was now my own responsibility to make myself happy again. She was never going to pop up and fix things for me. I had to fix them for myself. When I took that approach, a few things happened. First, I began to improve myself. I started exercising and spending more time with my friends (whom I had been neglecting). I started deliberately meeting new people. I took a big study-abroad trip and did some volunteer work. And slowly, I started to feel better. I "

― Mark Manson , The Subtle Art of Not Giving a F*ck: A Counterintuitive Approach to Living a Good Life

131 " People who enjoy the struggles of a gym are the ones who run triathlons and have chiseled abs and can bench-press a small house. People who enjoy long workweeks and the politics of the corporate ladder are the ones who fly to the top of it. People who enjoy the stresses and uncertainties of the starving artist lifestyle are ultimately the ones who live it and make it. This is not about willpower or grit. This is not another admonishment of “no pain, no gain.” This is the most simple and basic component of life: our struggles determine our successes. "

― Mark Manson , The Subtle Art of Not Giving a F*ck: A Counterintuitive Approach to Living a Good Life

132 " We suffer for the simple reason that suffering is biologically useful. It is nature’s preferred agent for inspiring change. We have evolved to always live with a certain degree of dissatisfaction and insecurity, because it’s the mildly dissatisfied and insecure creature that’s going to do the most work to innovate and survive. We "

― Mark Manson , The Subtle Art of Not Giving a F*ck: A Counterintuitive Approach to Living a Good Life

133 " True happiness occurs only when you find the problems you enjoy having and enjoy solving. Sometimes "

― Mark Manson , The Subtle Art of Not Giving a F*ck: A Counterintuitive Approach to Living a Good Life

134 " Because here’s another sneaky little truth about life. You can’t be an important and life-changing presence for some people without also being a joke and an embarrassment to others. "

― Mark Manson , The Subtle Art of Not Giving a F*ck: A Counterintuitive Approach to Living a Good Life

135 " We all have emotional blind spots. Often they have to do with the emotions that we were taught were inappropriate growing up. It takes years of practice and effort to get good at identifying blind spots in ourselves and then expressing the affected emotions appropriately. But this task is hugely important, and worth the effort. "

― Mark Manson , The Subtle Art of Not Giving a F*ck: A Counterintuitive Approach to Living a Good Life

136 " But now? Now if you feel like shit for even five minutes, you’re bombarded with 350 images of people totally happy and having amazing fucking lives, and it’s impossible to not feel like there’s something wrong with you. It’s "

― Mark Manson , The Subtle Art of Not Giving a F*ck: A Counterintuitive Approach to Living a Good Life

137 " My recommendation: don’t be special; don’t be unique. Redefine your metrics in mundane and broad ways. Choose to measure yourself not as a rising star or an undiscovered genius. Choose to measure yourself not as some horrible victim or dismal failure. Instead, measure yourself by more mundane identities: a student, a partner, a friend, a creator. "

― Mark Manson , The Subtle Art of Not Giving a F*ck: A Counterintuitive Approach to Living a Good Life

138 " Values underlie everything we are and do. If what we value is unhelpful, if what we consider success/failure is poorly chosen, then everything based upon those values—the thoughts, the emotions, the day-to-day feelings—will all be out of whack. Everything we think and feel about a situation ultimately comes back to how valuable we perceive it to be. Most "

― Mark Manson , The Subtle Art of Not Giving a F*ck: A Counterintuitive Approach to Living a Good Life

139 " If there really is no reason to do anything, then there is also no reason to not do anything "

― Mark Manson , The Subtle Art of Not Giving a F*ck: A Counterintuitive Approach to Living a Good Life

140 " it’s a never-ending upward spiral. And if you think at any point you’re allowed to stop climbing, I’m afraid you’re missing the point. Because the joy is in the climb itself. "

― Mark Manson , The Subtle Art of Not Giving a F*ck: A Counterintuitive Approach to Living a Good Life