Book Review: The Subtle Art of Not Giving a F*ck

In The Subtle Art of Not Giving a Fuck, Mark Manson offers advice that’s both punchy and profane. The book is a good guide to figuring out what you want in life and at work and how to achieve it. The route to this lies in not caring too much about everything. Once you give up the need to feel exceptional and be positive and happy all the time, as well as your fear of failure, you will be better off.

For those of us building careers, that would mean taking a hard look at what we want. If you don’t want 60 hour work weeks, long commutes, hoards of paperwork and don’t want to navigate corporate hierarchies that mean you don’t really want to be CEO. If you don’t fancy taking risks, suffering repeated failures and working insane hours devoted to something that may earn absolutely nothing, you don’t want to be an entrepreneur. What determines your success is not what you want to enjoy, but how much suffering you’re willing to sustain to get there.

Improvement at anything is based on thousands of tiny failures and the magnitude of your success is based on how many times you’ve failed at something. If someone is better than you at something, then it’s likely because she has failed at it more than you have. If someone is worse than you, it’s likely because he hasn’t been through all the painful learning experiences that you have.

Manson makes the argument that human beings are flawed and limited. As he writes, “not everybody can be extraordinary – there are winners and losers in society, and some of it is not fair or your fault.” He advises us to get to know our limitations and accept them. Once we embrace our fears, faults and uncertainties – once we stop running from and avoiding and start confronting painful truths – we can begin to find the courage and confidence we desperately seek.

Author brings a much needed grab-you-by-the-shoulders-and-look-you-in-the-eyes moment of real talk, filled with entertaining stories and profane, ruthless humor. This manifesto is a refreshing slap in the face for all of us, so that we can start to lead more contented, grounded lives. These insightful and funny perspectives on life are what make the book well worth a read. Its success lies it the fact it’s all very colloquial and conversational, and so easy to digest.