I listened to the audiobook of The Subtle Art of Not Giving a F*ck by Mark Manson this week. The introduction alone, rife with my favorite swear, endeared me to the self-improvement book. The spoiler is in the title, of course, but the real message is not to stop giving a fuck about everything, but rather to choose values that matter. Giving a fuck about everything means buying into the belief that we are always happy and comfy . . . when that doesn’t play out (because that’s not how life always is) we get fucked.
The book starts off funny and irreverent, but by the end, its words were reverberating deep beneath my skin. Like when a sitcom comedy suddenly gets real and makes you cry.
When it comes down to it, if you feel crappy it’s because your brain is telling you that there’s a problem that’s unaddressed or unresolved. In other words, negative emotions are a call to action. When you feel them, it’s because you’re supposed to do something. Positive emotions, on the other hand, are rewards for taking the proper action. When you feel them, life seems simple and there is nothing else to do but enjoy it. Then, like everything else, the positive emotions go away, because more problems inevitably emerge.
Mark Manson
Negative emotions tell us something is wrong. Whether it is anger or loneliness or maybe I’m just hungry . . . these are telling me to do something (to fight injustice, connect with friends, or order a pizza). There is no such thing as a problem-free life. I don’t think that means I need to anticipate crisis around every corner, but accepting that everything will not always be okay actually makes it easier to get through times when everything is not okay.
I used to believe, consciously or not, that my happiness was a destination: that struggles I’d overcome in the past were monsters to fight on the quest that I would complete The reward: the love of my life, a depression free brain, and a host of other vague and wonderful things.
The disappointment that my life didn’t suddenly become some static utopia when I checked all my imaginary boxes was intense and scarring.
But here’s another quote from the book: “Happiness is a constant work-in-progress because solving problems is a constant work-in-progress—the solutions to today’s problems will lay the foundation for tomorrow’s problems, and so on. True happiness occurs only when you find the problems you enjoy having and enjoy solving.”
Problems are never going to go away. Life is not perfect. We know this, I know this, but there is a difference between intellectual understanding and acceptance, or better, no longer wanting life to be perfect. That vague, static utopia would have meant I’d stop growing and learning — an opportunity I get with every new challenge or problem or sadness. It’d also be rather boring.
And okay, one more quote: ‘Once you become comfortable with all the shit that life throws at you (and it will throw a lot of shit, trust me), you become invincible in a sort of low-level spiritual way. After all, the only way to overcome pain is to first learn how to bear it.’
With Love,
Natalie
This is good advice!