Why you should read The Subtle Art of Not Giving a Fuck

I just finished reading Mark Manson’s phenomenal book, The Subtle Art of Not Giving a Fuck. The title is deceiving, as many titles are. The title suggests indifference, caring about little, a special kind of narcissism.

It is none of those things. What it is, is this: firmly on my all-time top-five list.

I don’t read self-help books. The last I read in that category is the Seven Habits of Highly Effective People, and that was in ninth grade, because it was assigned, which is another way of saying that I didn’t actually read the book but skimmed it and plucked the answers I needed.

Not that I’d really consider this one “self-help” either. It’s an odd mashup of Buddhist principles, stoicism and abrasive honesty.

Or, in other words: everything America is not.

We’ve grown soft as a society, tiptoeing around words, lacing honesty with white lies to soften it and retain self-esteem, creating “safe spaces,” filtering out opinions that might be different than our own, taking to social media to inflate our already wildly inflated egos. What this book does is flip all of that on its head, a necessary wake-up call.

The premise, as you may have guessed, is this: We give too many fucks.

We give a fuck about everything – what the legions of trolls on social media think of us, how many likes someone else got, what our exes are up to, how much money so and so spent on their engagement ring to so and so. What that does is steal the fucks we should be giving to the things that matter – our friends, family, passions, career.

It’s not that Manson argues to stop giving a fuck. In fact, he argues the opposite: take the fucks you’re giving to the unnecessary and trivial things in life, and reallocate them to the things that matter, so that you can be an incredible friend, spouse, employee, boss, son, father, daughter, whatever it is you want to be. Give those things your fucks. Not Twitter and Facebook and that cranky co-worker.

This book is more about being careful with where we divvy out our fucks.

I love that.

For how could I be the best son I could be if I’m busy giving out my fucks to some dude on the internet who left a nasty, unhelpful comment or email? Fuck that guy. He doesn’t get my fucks. My mom and dad do – they get my time and care and attention and phone calls, not angry internet rant guy, of which there are plenty, and of which I have given far too many fucks.

All of this seems obvious, but almost all of us succumb to giving our fucks to people or things who don’t deserve them. I know maybe one person who reserves his fucks entirely for how he wants to live his life, and that’s Eric Zaun. He lives in a van. He shops almost exclusively at Goodwill. He likes his parents and is a good friend when you need him.

You don’t like his style? You think he gave the ref too much lip? You think his haircut sucks? He doesn’t give a fuck.

His fucks are reserved for volleyball and living his best life. That’s it.

Some people think Zaun is a dick, and guess what? He doesn’t give a fuck about that either, because he’s living in his van, shopping at Goodwill, living his own little Zaun life.

This book is invaluable, for its message is simple and practical: Focus on what matters and nothing else. At the end of the story, we all die anyway.

May as well live our best lives while we can, reserving our fucks only for what’s important.

So sorry, angry internet Twitter troll comment guy, you don’t get my fucks anymore.

They’re for something else.