#15 What Lessons I Can Take from “The Subtle Art of Not Giving a F*ck” Book?




This book has been booming and a best seller for the last few years, including me who wonders on what is the content inside the book because of its title. Maybe it is true when I hear a saying like don’t judge a book from its cover but only for this book becomes don’t judge a book from its title. Based on my experience when I read it, it takes time to finish due to my laziness. It is a motivational book on self-development but unlike other motivational books in common, this is so different. I read it in the original version which is written in English though, it is damn good.

But you know, I can take lessons from it after reading chapter by chapter and I would like to write all of it below randomly.

#Blogging first, being worldwide writer later

I forgot to mention the author of this book is ‘Mark Manson’, before writing this book he is actively writing on his blog. Probably it can happen to me, starting with blogging and then when I am lucky it will bring me to be a big author, who knows! Hehe... just kidding, Dude! Okay, everything needs an effort; nobody can reach success instantly after all.

#And of course learn how to not give a f*ck

Please don’t get me wrong at first! To not give a fuck here doesn’t mean we ignore and don’t care about anything. We can consider and make a priority to what thing really matters and what thing doesn’t really matter to us. It is just like to not care about many things which are less or even unimportant and not valuable, we can choose to what things we have to give a fuck about. Do you feel anxious when looking at people on social media with all of their achievements? Do you feel insecure when your friend’s skin is more glowing and flawless than you? Do you care about what people think about your eyebrows? If yes, you give a fuck about worthless things.

This is what I have found on Mark Mansion’s book

Not giving a fuck does not mean being indifferent; it means being comfortable with being different”

#We are responsible to overcome our sadness by ourselves not others

If now you are not feeling okay because someone hurts you, you will definitely blame that person and expect responsibility for your sadness. Or you are probably in the situation where your parent got divorced; you feel no one can help you to fix your problem; or when the loved one like wife/husband or other family members tries to cheat on you and break your trust even leave you, all of those things may not be your fault but will you blame them for your disappointment because what they did?

Some of us sometimes prefer to be Victim Mentality where they have no idea to solve their problems. So, something that they can do is blaming others for their problems. So I think this is true when I found these words The only way to overcome pain is to first learn how to bear it”. Some of our problems are probably not our fault but we are still responsible to solve it, we can still choose what action will we take, accept or reject it, do it or not, we should not hope special treatment from others but we should attempt to overcome and maintenance it by ourselves because the source of happiness is in ourselves, not others.

 #The importance of saying ‘No’

A ‘yes man’ is exact terms for somebody like me who always say; yes, okay, alright, agree even though I disagree for some reasons. I will do anything to make people not disappointed though I frankly in the deepest of my heart I don’t want to do it. I think it is a good value but in fact, saying yes to everything or everybody is part of standing for nothing. It may sounds rude but I should have an ability to say ‘No’ and dare to say the truth if being asked for an opinion, sometimes we need to reject something that will make us better, honesty is part of good values.

#Having positive about all of the things is not always good
 
We often read or hear what mostly the author, motivator or influencer tell us that we should stay positive about anything that happens in our lives. And for some reason, I agree that there is always a good side we can learn a lesson from anything that happens to us even if it is something bad but sometimes positivity does not always become a solution to life’s problem even it can be a form of avoidance. Beside positive we also have a negative emotion, so if we always deny negative emotion, it will lead us to a deeper negative emotion, even worse than it is as Mark says in this book, emotional dysfunction. Negative emotions are an important part of emotional health, denying negativity can also be a problem rather than a solution. So, if we find that life sucks we better just admit it.

There are still many things else I can pick up from this book and write down here actually but due to my anxiety about making the majority in this country get bored to read this in a longer text. I realize that not so many people like reading. Wait! See?! Realize or not I am even still giving a fuck about what people think about my writing. I know all the above are a little bit challenging to take it into practice. In fact, in a real situation we still do the opposite things above. Besides, we can choose and define what values we will adopt, good or bad values.

For more detail, you can read his book “A subtle art of not giving a f*ck” by Mark Manson.


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