Epiphany From Books - The Subtle Art of Not Giving a F*ck

 

Chapter 1 - Don't Try - 

• All the positive and happy self-help stuff we hear all the time - is actually fixating on what you lack. It lasers in on what you perceive your personal shortcomings and failures to already be, and then emphasises them for you.
• The Feedback Loop From Hell - 
• The desire for more positive experience is itself a negative experience. And, paradoxically, the acceptance of one's negative experience is a positive experience. 
• Everything worthwhile in life is won through surmounting the associated negative experience. Any attempt to escape the negative, to avoid it or quash it or silence it, only backfires. The avoidance of suffering is a form of suffering.
• The Subtle Art of Not Giving a Fuck - 
• Not giving a fuck doesn't mean being indifferent; it means being comfortable with being different - You can't be an important and life-changing presence for some people without also being a joke and an embarrassment to others. The point isn't to get away from shit. The point is to find the shit you enjoy dealing with.
• To not give a fuck about adversity, you must first give a fuck about something more important than adversity - Finding something important and meaningful in your life is perhaps the most productive use of your time and energy.
• Whether you realise it or not, you are always choosing what to give a fuck about - Essentially, we become more selective about the fucks we are willing to give. That is something called maturity.

Chapter 2 - Happiness Is a Problem - 

• Our own pain and suffering aren't a bug of human evolution, they are a feature.
• Happiness comes from "solving" problems not avoiding them.
• We do not solve our problems because
• Denial - Some people deny that their problems exist in the first place. And because they deny reality, they must constantly delude or distract themselves from reality. It leads to a life of insecurity, neuroticism, and emotional repression
• Victim Mentality - Some choose to believe that there is nothing they can do to solve their problems, even when they in fact could. Victims seek to blame others for their problems or blame outside circumstances. This leads to a life of anger, helplessness, and despair.
• Negative emotions are a call to action. Positive emotions, on the other hand, are rewards for taking the proper action.
• An obsession and over investment in emotion fails us for the simple reason that emotions never last. Whatever makes us happy today will no longer make us happy tomorrow.
• Love the process, not the result. Because the joy is in the climb

Chapter 3 - You are Not Special - 

• The deeper the pain, the more helpless we feel against our problems, and the more entitlement we adopt to compensate for the problems. Entitlement plays out in one of the two ways
• I am awesome and the rest of you all suck, so I deserve special treatment
• I suck and the rest of you are all awesome, so I deserve special treatment
• You and your problems are actually not privileged in their severity or pain - that is the first and most important step toward solving them.
• It's statistically improbable that any single person will be an extraordinary performer in all areas of life, or even in many areas of their life. We are all, for the most part, pretty average people. 
• If everyone were extraordinary, then by definition no one would be extraordinary - is missed by most people.

Chapter 4 - The Value of Suffering

• The first layer of self-awareness onion is a simple understanding of one's emotions. 
• This is when I feel happy
• This makes me feel sad
• This gives me hope
• The second layer is an ability to ask why we feel certain emotions
• Why do you feel angry? 
• Is it because you failed to achieve some goal?
• Why do you feel lethargic and uninspired?
• Is it because you don't think you are good enough?
• The third layer is our personal values
• Why do I consider this to be success/failure?
• How am I choosing to measure myself
• By what standard am I judging myself and everyone around me?
• If you want to change how you see your problems, you have to change what you value and/or how you measure failure/success.
• Some shitty values
• Pleasure - Pleasure is not the cause of happiness; rather it is the effect. If you get the other stuff right (the other values and metrics), then pleasure will naturally occur as a by-product.
• Material Success - Once one is able to provide for basic physical needs, the correlation between happiness and worldly success quickly approaches zero.
• Always Being Right - People who base their self-worth on being right about everything prevent themselves from learning from their mistakes. They lack the ability to take on new perspectives and emphasise with others. They close themselves to new and important information,
• Staying Positive - Denying negative emotions leads to experiencing deeper and more prolonged negative emotions and to emotional dysfunction. Constant positivity is a form of avoidance, not a valid solution to life's problems.
• One day, in retrospect, the years of struggle will strike you as the most beautiful.
• Prioritise better values, choosing better things to give a fuck about. Because when you give better fucks, you get better problems. And when you better problems, you get a better life.