I haven't posted on my reading of "The Subtle Art of Not Giving A F*ck" in quite a while now. I say to myself that it's because I have been very busy with other things. And while I sit at my mechanic this morning rereading the last part of the book that I haven't posted on, it's because it's damn uncomfortable.
This section is about "no" and rejection but not in the way you might think. Rather than being about how to handle rejection from others, it's more about rejecting things ourselves or standing for nothing. Mark says "If we reject nothing (perhaps in fear of being rejected ourselves), we essentially have no identity at all." I couple this with "silence is the voice of complicity" and ask myself am I doing the right thing not posting so much about the things I see happening in this country right now? I hate the racism I see, I hate the open corruption in our government, I hate the attacks our government is now making on established science, the environment, public education, how children of immigrants are being ripped from their parent's arms by ICE and so much more. But I also hated what focusing on these things was doing in my head and turning me into. I'd rather be a peacemaker than a divider and I know that I actually have much in common with oh let's say those who voted for Trump. I share much of their anger at the system, for example, the system is broken we just have very different views on how to fix it. As I get to know some of these people I see some wonderful people with very different views. So can I take a stand without dividing? Can I keep communication open? Can I build bridges and not walls? Can I take a stand and not be a *ick? I heard some time ago that a person was asked to go to an anti-war rally and they said they wouldn't but would go to a pro-peace rally. I feel like that's what I want to be, stand for things I value not against things I hate, but in doing so am I a voice of complicity? Enough rant, for now, I have to pay the mechanic. But I while I like Mark's book a lot I think he is somewhat wrong here. Largely because I know that when you "take a stand" and point out that someone is wrong, they usually dig in and get into a defensive position rather than opening up to new ways of thinking and change. There may be times to take such a stand, but I think it is usually counterproductive. It's true as Mark says that "Nobody want's to feel that they can't say what they really mean." But perhaps to help with human progress we need to learn to be diplomatic about it.
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Confession time: I have been avoiding this section titled The "Do Something" Principle. because I feel that I really suck at actually doing things.
But really, I am not so sure about that, I mean I have been reading this book and posting my thoughts for ALL to see, that's doing something. I have lost 10 lbs in the last month, that's doing something too! In this section, Mark says that motivation comes from doing things, NOT wait until you feel motivated to do something and certainly the two examples I just shared affirm that in my life. I need to DO more of that, I bet you do too. Mark says: "If we follow the 'do something' principle, failure feels unimportant. When the standard of success becomes merely acting - when ANY result is regarded as progress and important, when inspiration is seen as a reward rather than a prerequisite - we propel ourselves ahead. We feel free to fail, and that failure moves us forward. So simply stated we just need to give less fucks and DO something. Today's read was a pain in that it was about the value pain can bring in making our lives better. Like painful muscles from working out make us physically stronger, emotional pain (if we allow it) can make us emotionally stronger. From Mark: "Our most radical changes in perspective often happen at the tail end of our worst moments. It's only when we feel intense pain that we're willing to look at our values and question why they seem to be failing us. We need some sort of existential crisis to take an objective look at how we have been deriving meaning in our life, and then consider changing course." I hate to admit it, because I hate pain of any kind, but as I look back at my life I can see how true this is. And I am glad that I looked at my values and how I got my values and changed course rather than self-medicating with some substances and missing out on a better life. To some extent, even without a clear pain point I am doing that again know and hope that I always will. My life in many ways is better now than in the past, but it's not still not what I want in many ways, so I am again looking at my values and where I get my meaning, evaluating and changing course. To that end I am really glad I got this book it is a very helpful tool in that process, thank you Mark Manson! But as much as we look at our values and meaning, we are never going to fully know and that brings us to doing something anyway! It's been a few days since my last post and I'll admit to putting off this chapter which is titled "Failure Is The Way Forward".
I don't remember all the details but somehow I have it implanted in my head and emotions that failure is just that, failure, and it's bad and you don't want bad. In my head I know that is wrong, that actually failure is the way forward, that is is the path to success, but I still avoid it. Mark says: "At some point, most of us reach a place where we're afraid to fail, where we instinctively avoid failure and stick only to what is placed in front of us or only what we are already good at." Yep, that's me, and I bet to a large extent it's you too. And it leaves us stuck. The only way out of stuck is to press on and be willing to fail at something we believe in and are willing to commit to until we succeed. And hopefully, that thing includes just simply improving ourselves. Being a bit better today than we were yesterday. What if I am wrong is tuff, but this!
As Mark says: "Many people are able to ask themselves if they're wrong, but few are able to go the extra step and admit what it would mean if they were wrong. That's because the potential meaning behind our wrongness is often painful. Not only does it call into question our values, but it forces us to consider what a different, contradictory value could potentially look and feel like." I have done this with core beliefs that I grew up with and had strongly adhered to. Beliefs that I thought where about love but came to realize where more about fear. And that was very painful but it made my life better, it made me more free. It made me able to love and accept myself and others more freely. And I think this is one of the things I love so much about this book is that it is helping me ask these questions again. Just because the beliefs I had before were wrong doesn't mean the ones I have now are right. It's not always right and wrong, often it's just less wrong. And realizing that you might just be less wrong rather than right can help you dig deeper, to get to the root, the meaning. For most of my life I have taken a stance on something that is a hot topic right now, so I'll just call it "A". I still feel strongly about A but what I asked "What would it mean if I was wrong? I began to see that A was a symptom rather than the problem itself. That to solve the problem we need to go deeper. So tough as it may be, to make our lives and the world better, we really need to ask not just what if I am wrong? We also need to understand that it's often not a choice of right and wrong at all, but often less wrong rather than right and we need to ask what does that mean? I'm just going to start this post by quoting Mark. "That means the more something threatens to change how you view yourself, how successful/unsuccessful you believe yourself to be, how you see yourself living up to your values, the more you will get around to ever doing it"
"There's a certain comfort that comes with knowing how you fit in the world. Anything that shakes up that comfort - even if it could potentially make your life better - is inherently scary." Man, I read that and thought, yep, that's me. There are things I know that I could do to break free from the job I have and gain more freedom over my life, but I am not doing them. I love working on Tiny House designs but am not doing what I need to do to actually build a tiny house, etc. etc. I see this in my life a lot. BUT I also see that I have made changes in my life, huge tumultuous changes. And my life is better for it. So maybe I need to see myself more as someone that benefits and grows from change. As someone who embraces it. As Mark says: "that's what keeps you striving and discovering. And it forces you to remain humble in your judgments and accepting of others." So what are you avoiding? My read today in The Subtle Art of Not Giving A F*ck was one of my biggest single daily reads yet. And I am having difficulty sharing something from it because there is so much to share and I am concerned about it being out of context.
I am not going to share nearly all that I could. Get and read the book! Today's section dealt with an experiment where people felt they could do certain things to make a bell ring, when in actuality the bell ringing was totally random, and a story of false memory from therapy. showing in short that "the human mind is capable of coming up with and believing in a bunch of bullshit that isn't real." OK, don't even get me started on how the media is brainwashing us today! On that front, I do recommend the documentary "The Brainwashing of My Dad". Mark also talks about the telephone game that we all likely played as a kid, where someone starts with a simple story, and it gets whispered to someone else, and then to someone else, and about 12 or so people later the last person in the group shares what they got with the whole group and it's not anything like how it started. The problem is, this doesn't just happen from person to person, we do it to ourselves over time. Those things from our past that we remember so well weren't exactly like we remember them now. I agree with how Mark ends this section, self-skepticism and the rigorous challenging of our own beliefs and assumptions are the only logical route to progress. I grew up believing certain things where true. But I also saw that many of those things didn't make sense. So I questioned and that led to growth and new views of life.
And I realize as this new view developed that many hold fast to it just like many I knew held fast to my old beliefs and they are stuck in a "we are right, they are wrong" mentality, and the truth most likely is that we are all wrong. Certainly not to the same degree, as some stopped asking before others, so some are more wrong than others, but when we stop asking we all become wrong none the less. We may be tempted to believe in certainty, certainty is easy. We may be tempted to just believe, but believing without questioning is dangerous, it allows you to be taken advantage of by those who wish to control you. Resistance to change "knowing we are right" keeps us from growing and becoming our ever developing best. Here's a few words from Mark Manson: "Instead of striving for certainty, we should be in constant search of doubt: doubt about our own beliefs, doubt about our own feelings, doubt about what the future may hold for us unless we get out and create it for ourselves. Instead of looking to be right all the time, we should be looking for how we're wrong all the time. Because we are." Imagine if everyone had stopped asking questions and doubting thousands of years ago? We could still be in caves. This to me is the basis of the growth of humanity and especially of the scientific process. Don't accept anything as rock solid certain. Always ask questions, always doubt, and always keep moving forward to be better and ask better questions. As I was reading The Subtle Art this morning in a section on Victimhood Chic on how it's so chic now to be offended by every little thing and how the media feeds this, I was agreeing but wondering what I was going to share in my post here.
Then Mark gave this quote from Tim Kreider and I suddenly remembered why I started reading a book about not giving a fuck in the first place! I have been outraged ever since Trump got elected, and that outrage has grown with every move he and the GOP has made to end environmental, social, economic and other protections, people he has placed in charge of government departments who oppose what those very departments do, etc, etc. I have been outraged that calling and writing our elected officials clearly no longer has an impact, as they only listen to, and look out for the interests of those who line their pockets with money. And I realized that my outrage was devouring me from the inside out. That this situation didn't just happen overnight, Trump and the current crop of Congress are symptoms of things that have been growing for decades (Look to the Lewis Powell memorandum to the US Chamber of Commerce in 1971 as well as the end of the Fairness Doctrine in media in the 80's for a couple major ingredients of this current situation) I really can't do anything about that but vote. Was I going to let it continue to devour me? That's what made me turn to this book, to find a way, not to be indifferent about what is happening, I don't want that. But to at least not give so many fucks about it that I let it control my life and stop me from moving forward. For that I am very grateful that I found The Subtle Art of Not Giving a F*ck, it's helping. |
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