Monthly nonfiction book review time! If you haven’t read these before and want to, click on “Book Thoughts” below.
This month, we had a request for Mark Manson’s “The Subtle Art of Not Giving a F***.” Let me first say, I’m not a person who generally cares about swearing, other than to make sure to be appropriate to other peoples’ expectations and contexts. But I bought the audio of this book and after about ten minutes, I was feeling more attacked by the constant use of the F-word than I have been even in locker rooms full of angry athletes. So… I couldn’t finish the audio. But I went in and skimmed the rest of the book.
It didn’t take me long to form an opinion about this book, and I’ll give you the highlights.
First, like everything, it’s definitely not for everyone. (And I don’t just mean based on your profanity tolerance level. I mean, of course, with personality.) If you are a person this book speaks to, it will likely speak deeply, because it confronts a lot of the same things that I confront in my books to writers. There will be pain. You’re not wrong for thinking what you think. Your fears are normal. Etc.
So, on some level, I think that the core message of the book is a pretty good one, because I also write about it. 🙂
But on another level, like a lot of pop psychology, he makes wide, sweeping assumptions about things that just aren’t true, and it was pretty frustrating to listen to, after a while.
Just as a for instance, his assumption that everyone who looks at a future self that’s better than their present self, gets disheartened by the fact that they’re not “there” yet. Not true at all. In fact, there are several types of personalities that are inspired by the potential growth in the future. They don’t beat themselves up for not being whatever-they-want-to-be-later. So, the core premise of his philosophy is flawed, for me, from moment one.
But I also think that even people for whom positive-mental-attitude stuff works can have the disappointments and the frustrations, so it’s not like it’ll never resonate for them. It’s just not the best message for that person.
The parts about “there will be pain and that’s normal,” I mostly agreed with. Part of the reason I had a hard time with the book is, he writes like someone who really likes the sound of his own voice, and I tend to get turned off by nonfiction that sounds like that.
One of the best parts of the book was his suggestion to QTP (although he didn’t use that phrase, obviously… someday, it will be everywhere) the “what do I want out of life” question. Instead, he says to ask, “What kind of pain do I want?” and I really liked that. Because it’s the acceptance of the bad news of life, and it’s an acknowledgment that there will be pain, and I’m going to choose the most productive pain I can.
“Don’t hope for a life without problems. Hope for a life with good problems.” Really liked that.
The other part I really liked was one of his “subtlety” moments. The “subtle” art, he says, is that it’s subconscious and non-overt. And his whole “only so many f***s to give” boiled down to this one part that really resonated with me: “In order to no give a f*** about adversity, you have to care about something more important than adversity.” So, when we focus on trying to stay out of adversity, we actually cause more pain for ourselves. But if we care about something else more (a higher order, a higher power, a personal growth, character, virtue, etc.), we can see that adversity is both good and productive.
And this is the only other point I really agreed with him on. I can’t stress enough how much I agree with this point.
When our only goal is to feel less pain, we’re going to be disappointed and we’re not going to thrive. People who have the most resilience in life learn how to embrace pain and how to utilize suffering and make them productive.
On that point, we agree completely.
Not just because I think it’s a nice philosophy, but because that’s what I’ve seen work, through the coaching I do. When we can accept the pain and the adversity that comes our way, and make it productive, and care only about things that are really worth caring about, we can really get somewhere.
The path to success is paved with adversity. If you want success, you want suffering.
So, there’s my review of the SAONGAF. I’m not sure if I’m glad I read it or not. It was definitely good to finally read the book that others have talked about loving. I clearly didn’t love it, but that’s more because of the tone and the writer than it was about the message.
Again, like everything, it’s not for everyone. And it’s certainly not a universal message that everyone must hear (because there are also other people saying the same things: embrace adversity, be resilient, you’re normal, you’re not alone, etc.). But like I said earlier, for the right person, this book will resonate hard. So I get why it’s so popular, even though I didn’t particularly care for it.
What about you? Have you read the book? What did you think?
Any requests for next month?
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