The Subtle Art of Not Giving a F*ck

For the majority I listened to the audiobook version of it. It definitely took me a while to get into it, the beginning was really confusing and cringy with all the unnecessary swearing.

Ideas presented are solid, but it's essentially just repacked stoicism, told in a ‘trendy' way.
Good introduction for someone new into it, but I recommend going straight to the source as soon as possible (Aurelius, Epictetus, Seneca), starting with Ryan Holiday as a more obvious introduction to ideas of stoicism.
Still a fun listen, although I barely remember anything from it, the first half draws a total blank for me.

Manson is good and has a cool blog.

A wonderful book for people who want to figure out how to be happy and fulfilled, but who don't go in for navel-gazing or “spirituality” as such.

The casual, snarky tone and detailed personal examples make the counter-intuitive lessons easier to grasp. You may not be interested in puzzling out Zen koans, but Manson makes it easy to understand how craving positive experiences is itself a negative experience, while acknowledging negative experiences is itself a positive experience. Or how problems are the source of happiness (you just have to choose the right problems). Or how rejection is an essential part of accepting a positive experience.

He also does a pretty good job of dismantling cultural misconceptions about self esteem, relationships, and boundaries. I didn't find his opinions to be gospel truth on every front, but generally speaking he hits the nail on the head.

I felt like the opening of the book was the strongest part, with the profundity and usefulness diminishing toward the end. But that may be because I've never tended to have the problems he talks about toward the end of the book.

Received this as a present from an awesome librarian friend, who said I would love it. Other than her great recommendation, I hadn't heard of Manson before, so didn't have expectations. His writing is of the moment and funny, and I enjoyed his Buddhism-light meets philosophy meets pop-culture advice. Nothing new but wrapped in a clever and concise package. Enjoyable and definitely recommend as book for discussing with a partner/friend/book group.

I absolutely loved this book and can't wait to share it with others. In short: Stop worrying. Live life how YOU want to. Take care of yourself and LOVE yourself. Stand behind your choices and do what you want to. Learn to say no. Face your fears. Challenge yourself. Quit waiting for others to save you. Quit waiting for life to give you want you “deserve”. Like it or not, everything that happens to you is a result of your own choice. You may have no been given that promotion at work, but you also didn't ASK for it. You don't like your weight, but you've done nothing to change it.

Read this book. Listen to its advice. Learn from its stories and live life however the fuck you want.

A modern Taoist reader with specific examples for young adults from rich Western countries. I give all of those qualifiers because the book will struggle to impress audiences with s different background. That being said, millions of folks may save themselves some painful learning in the school of hard knocks by patiently taking the advice in these pages.

Biggest takeaway? You are responsible for you - what you spend your time on, what you do not spend time on, how you react to things, and how you present yourself. You are not responsible for anyone else's interpretation, behavior, reaction, etc.

A bit of language. Don't read if you can't get past that ;)

I highly recommend this book, even if you only read the first third or so. Mark has a way or rephrasing what we have all likely read or heard at one point or another such that it hits home. I strive to be a better person but am not a self-help junkie. I've already applied some of the concepts in the book and while I can't say I feel markedly happier, I feel freer because of the clarity I have on how my life and decisions are working.

I picked this book up on a lark after seeing it on the bestselling list at the bookstore. I admit that the first few chapters are engrossing and even make sense. It is, at best, an extended version of the serenity prayer i.e. focus on the things you can change and ignore the ones you can't. There are definitely some lessons in there that many of us need to be reminded about but nothing that can't be said in a longish blog post. The latter half of the book simply drags on and focuses mostly on the author's personal life and his life-coach blogging.

I would recommend reading the first 2-3 chapters of the book in couple of hours and then tossing it aside.

Witty, Funny, Inspiring.

Mark Manson releases a book that can help people with some funny jokes and good insight about life that i personally agree with since many of his words are relatable to me and he done it in such a good way that he doesn't feel like teaching you anything.

That's the beauty of this book, to be truly who you are without putting yourself in a box

And also to learn how to don't care about people's word in a elegant way

This is the First help book that I read not because I don't need self-improvement. I was just afraid that book might get boring.

To my surprise, Subtle art is quite engaging, Full of living examples, and made some Excellent point.

Though there were some points where I was not able to agree with the Author but I'm ready to give less F*ck with the help of the book :).

Happy living!

“Everything worthwhile in life is won through surmounting the associated negative experience.”

An aptly named book. I was surprised by how much I agreed with Mark's reasoning and concepts. Highly recommend for anyone looking to take the time to step back and reevaluate their lives and focus on the more meaningful aspect of life. One of the ways to do this, as Mark points out in a funny and example ridden way, is to not care about every little thing.

This entire book was a journey through the ego of the author- fanciful nonsense with no real substance or real advice offered anywhere. It was mostly stories of him talking about people with undesirable traits (a few of which seem word for word taken from David Mcraneys book/podcast, ‘You are not so smart,' so I'd be inclined to assume he did the same for other books), and bragging about his very likely made up conquests in his 20's under the guise of self deprecation- those are interspersed with a bubblegum understanding (and mostly wrong at that) of psychology and evolutionary biology to make anyone, with even a base understanding of these topics, cringe every time he adds his inane personal views on ‘research'.

Better titles would be, ‘The subtle art of fundamentally misunderstanding how statistics and research works,' or ‘The subtle art of having a terrible vocabulary, so use the word fuck as much as you can,' or ‘The subtle art of I read a book on Stoic philosophy and Buddhism once, misunderstood it, and now I'll write a book preying on people with low self esteem,' or ‘The subtle art of if I quote smart people, and word for word take my stories from Wikipedia and plagerise other books, people will think what I'm saying is smart too.'

After reading so many rave reviews, I was expecting this to offer something valuable. It spectacularly failed. I'm glad it seemed to help some people- but I'm sceptical that it helped anything beyond an initial feeling of ‘wow I do that too,' then forgetting about it entirely a year later.

1/5 fucks given.

Let me be kind and preface my review by saying I don't think I'm the intended audience for this book. Maybe if I'd read it in my early twenties it might have had more of an impact but even in my early twenties I hated smug, self-congratulatory, middle-aged men, who thought that saying ‘fuck' all the time made them edgy, and liking Metallica made them cool. Very basic, very heteronormative, very white advice, with a side of giant trigger warnings for sexual abuse and suicide. Two stars - one for the mention of Alan Watts, and the other for being mercifully short.

I just finished this book and was glad I read it, but it's more entertaining than enlightening. Blogger Mark Manson introduces a way of thinking (or not-thinking) that you might call “stoicism with cursing.” The basic gist is that concepts are arbitrary, and the standards we use to judge ourselves are often foolish and impossible to justify. Furthermore the book serves as a commentary on current cultural norms, which focus on feelings instead of healthy pain and hard work.

Manson's prose is fun to read and his choice of anecdotes is clever and edifying. I would have preferred a different title that I would be able to explain to my kids, but I guess that wouldn't sell as many books. Manson works best when he is telling other people's stories and using them to illustrate his points. As someone older than the author I had a hard time taking him seriously when his greatest qualification is “blogger.” As with many books in this field, I skimmed the last two chapters, as Manson made his point early in the book, supported it well on the middle, then ran out of steam at the end. It got repetitive. But it was fun to read and I recommend it.

Meh. There are some valuable philosophical points in here for sure. But the delivery feels haphazard and disjointed. Doesn't do a very good job of wrapping the themes together into a cogent set of ideas. Feels more like a set of shower thoughts with further exploration. ... That's said, it was a quick and funny and meaningful read. Need more depth though.

Another nice book about defining your priorities and what you want and expect from life. This one forces you to look at things in an objective way and to define real, tangible values for yourself, on which you can work on, and not some material success or keeping on comparing to others. This book made me laugh quite a lot of time, as it's written in a blunt way and doesn't cut around the edges, but god did it felt good.

“I say don't find yourself. I say never know who you are. Because that's what keeps you striving and discovering. And it forces you to remain humble in your judgments and accepting of the differences in others.”

This originally appeared at The Irresponsible Reader.
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I'd seen this book around, and let my eyes slide right off given the title. Clearly, it wasn't for me. Then a couple of months ago, I heard it referenced in a couple of podcast interviews (no, I don't remember who talked about it – but at least one of them said something thoughtful about it) and my cubicle-mate listened to it at the same time and seemed to enjoy it. So I figured I'd give it a shot. I'm very glad I did, really.

I'm also glad that HarperCollins' website gives such a thorough blurb about the book, which will save me so much time – so let's take a moment to read what they said:

In this generation-defining self-help guide, a superstar blogger cuts through the crap to show us how to stop trying to be “positive” all the time so that we can truly become better, happier people.

For decades, we've been told that positive thinking is the key to a happy, rich life. “Fk positivity,” Mark Manson says. “Let's be honest, shit is fked and we have to live with it.” In his wildly popular Internet blog, Manson doesn't sugarcoat or equivocate. He tells it like it is—a dose of raw, refreshing, honest truth that is sorely lacking today. The Subtle Art of Not Giving a Fk is his antidote to the coddling, let's-all-feel-good mindset that has infected modern society and spoiled a generation, rewarding them with gold medals just for showing up.

Manson makes the argument, backed both by academic research and well-timed poop jokes, that improving our lives hinges not on our ability to turn lemons into lemonade, but on learning to stomach lemons better. Human beings are flawed and limited—”not everybody can be extraordinary, there are winners and losers in society, and some of it is not fair or your fault.” Manson advises us to get to know our limitations and accept them. Once we embrace our fears, faults, and uncertainties, once we stop running and avoiding and start confronting painful truths, we can begin to find the courage, perseverance, honesty, responsibility, curiosity, and forgiveness we seek.

There are only so many things we can give a fk about so we need to figure out which ones really matter, Manson makes clear. While money is nice, caring about what you do with your life is better, because true wealth is about experience. A much-needed grab-you-by-the-shoulders-and-look-you-in-the-eye moment of real-talk, filled with entertaining stories and profane, ruthless humor, The Subtle Art of Not Giving a F*k is a refreshing slap for a generation to help them lead contented, grounded lives.

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Don't Sweat the Small Stuff