Hey guys I hope you are good I do not read the self-help genre very often but this book has been getting a lot of buzz and I wanted to give it a try and that is the subtle art of not giving enough by Mark Manson so Mark Manson is a blogger and an internet entrepreneur and I had not heard of Mark Manson prior to reading this I still have not ever read anything on his blog so I did not really know what to expect from this book and I was surprised by how much I liked it the subtle art of not giving enough so just the actual word that I do not say in my channel before I review a book I like to scroll through Goodreads
And just see if people hated the book why and just try to get that different perspective and a lot of the people who dislike this book were put off by the tone of it the writing style is very casual it’s written in a way that makes you feel like you just sat down at Dunkin Donuts for a mid-afternoon chat on a Saturday afternoon with a guy named Mark who happens to be a self-help longer that’s the tone of the book there is no beautiful well polished prose it’s written like Mark is just talking to you like a friend and Mark rub some people the wrong way he’s kind of crass he’s vulgar there are curse words all throughout.
Read another book: It ends with us pdf
This book as the title might suggest the content at times is repetitive but a lot of what he said really stayed with me and I actually made a point a few times to go get my journal and write down a few quotes because I want to go back and be able to reference them pretty quickly in this book Mark Manson makes a point to distance himself from the really common self-help message of the power of positivity and positive thinking and the importance of high self esteem and he actually cites a lot of social research studies that show that like mass murderers often have very high opinion of themselves and people who commit terrible crimes often think they are great people.
And from there he talks about the importance of really examining the values that you Center your life around and that’s pretty much what this book is about despite the kind of flashy vulgar eye catching title this book is really about how to examine the values that you centered your life and what it would require to actually make any kind of shift in them something I found really helpful was the author’s point that if you truly want to find out what your values are in your life do not sit down and just say okay so what are my values and then I write them down on a notepad or something instead do an experiment where you keep track of what you spend your time doing and what you spend your time thinking about and that’s going to reveal to you what you have actually centered your life around.
The last sort of self-help book that I have read is the book of joy by the Dalai Lama and the Archbishop Desmond Tutu I read that in November of last year I think and the biggest comment thread that I noticed between this book and the book of joy is the idea that happiness is not some passive state of being that you can eventually just achieve that happiness is more of an action and it’s an ongoing action the book of joy basically says that if you truly want to be happy step 1 stop thinking about yourself go think about other people be generous and the subtle art of not giving enough the main idea is that if you truly want to be happy Center your life around values that you truly want to be upholding and upholding those values is going to come with a slew of problems that you are going to have to 3:23 continue.
To struggle with but that is going to lead to a more enduring and lasting happiness than this sort of chasing of an emotional or temporary high that leaves you happy for like a fleeting moment and I want to end by reading one of my favorite excerpts from the book to you and it’s a bit long so bear with me but I do think that it’s worth reading the whole thing to have the context to kind of make his full point so it begins with the struggle is the point this is a difficult pill to swallow we like the idea that there’s some form of ultimate happiness that can be attained we like the idea that we can alleviate all of our suffering permanently we like the idea that we can feel fulfilled and satisfied with our lives forever but we cannot happiness requires struggle
It grows from problems and who you are is defined by what you are willing to struggle for I like that line who you are is defined by what you are willing to struggle for people who enjoy the struggles of Jim I cannot say I terribly do but anyway people who enjoy the struggles of a Jim are the ones who run triathlons they are the ones who have chiseled abs it can benchpress a small house people who enjoy long work weeks and the politics of the corporate ladder are the ones will fly to the top of it people who enjoy the stresses and uncertainties of a starving artists lifestyle are ultimately the ones who live in and make it this is not about willpower or Grint this is not another admonishment of no pain no gain this is the simple and most basic component of life our struggles determine our successes
Conclusion
Our problems birth our happiness along with slightly better slightly upgraded problems it’s a never ending upward spiral and if you think at any point you are allowed to stop climbing I am afraid you are missing the point because the joy is in the climate itself leave your thoughts down below as always thanks so much for readingi upload Fridays and Sundays I might need to make some changes into my uploading schedules I will update you on that soon and I will see you in the next.
