Book: The Subtle Art of Not Giving a F*ck
I first picked up this book in the office I was posted to in the Army. It happened to be lying around and the title caught my eye.
As a person who has heaped pressure on myself more than anyone externally, this book got me one step closer to being more comfortable in my skin.
It also made me realize that I was prone to handing out fucks for free when I really shouldn’t.
I thoroughly enjoyed the frank nature of the book. It works especially well because it’s coming from an inanimate object and so nothing feels personal. It’s pretty funny to read at time because of how straightforward it is.
Here are some of my favorite quotes:
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“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. You just can’t.”
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“The point isn’t to get away from the real shit. The point is to find the shit you enjoy dealing with.”
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“To try to avoid pain is to give too many fucks about pain. In contrast, if you’re able to not give a fuck about the pain, you become unstoppable.”
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“You’re going to die one day. I know that’s kind of obvious, but I just wanted to remind you in case you’d forgotten. You and everyone you know are going to be dead soon. And in the short amount of time between here and there, you have a limited amount of fucks to give. Very few, in fact.”
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“Maturity is what happens when one learns to only give a fuck about what’s truly fuckworthy.”
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“No, not that airy-fairy, eternal bliss, end-of-all-suffering, bullshitty kind of enlightenment. On the contrary, I see practical enlightenment as becoming comfortable with the idea that some suffering is always inevitable—that no matter what you do, life is comprised of failures, loss, regrets, and even death.”
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“Don’t hope for a life without problems. There’s no such thing. Instead, hope for a life full of good problems.” (reminds me of this song)
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“With great responsibility comes great power.”
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“We shouldn’t seek to find the ultimate ‘right’ answer for ourselves, but rather, we should seek to chip away at the ways that we’re wrong today so that we can be a little less wrong tomorrow.”
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“Uncertainty also relieves us of our judgment of ourselves. We don’t know if we’re lovable or not; we don’t know how attractive we are; we don’t know how successful we could potentially become. The only way to achieve these things is to remain uncertain of them and be open to finding them out through experience.”
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“It’s not about giving a fuck about everything your partner gives a fuck about; it’s about giving a fuck about your partner regardless of the fucks he or she gives.”
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“How will the world be different and better when you’re gone? What mark will you have made? What influence will you have caused? They say that a butterfly flapping its wings in Africa can cause a hurricane in Florida; well, what hurricanes will you leave in your wake?”
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“Without acknowledging the ever-present gaze of death, the superficial will appear important, and the important will appear superficial.”