“While not giving a f*ck may seem simple on the surface, it’s a whole new bag of burritos under the hood.” – Mark Manson
Shocking title huh? I assure you it’s entirely on theme. We just finished a project in which we read and analyzed a self-help book of choice. I chose to read Mark Manson’s The Subtle Art of Not Giving a F*ck. I’d actually been wanting to read this book for several years, so I was pleased to have an opportunity to do so for a school project. This book turned out to be very entertaining to read, with plenty of absurd examples and crazy stories. While I read, I filled the book with sticky note after sticky note (42 in total). I then went back through the book and took notes on the parts I’d marked with the sticky notes. I organized my book into smart brevity notes, which I feel gave a pretty good summary of the key takeaways from the book. You can read them below:
We also created a short author bio for our books. Here’s what I learned about Mark Manson:
After reading our books and creating our notes, we created posters and a pitch to give to audiences who would attend our mini book fair. I’m really pleased with my poster which was inspired by the burrito quote at the top of this blog post. Here’s they are:
I don’t know about you, but I often find myself thinking why the f*ck am I spending my time doing this right now?! From seemingly useless assignments to trying to excel in classes, it’s easy to become overwhelmed and unable to enjoy life. Mark Manson’s The Subtle Art of Not Giving a F*ck teaches you to choose what is really important and spend less time on what isn’t. As Mark says “While not giving a f*ck may seem simple on the surface, it’s a whole new bag of burritos under the hood.” While he may not know what the f*ck that sentence means, he does know how to master the art of choosing what exactly to give a f*ck about and teaches it to you in a way that makes you laugh. From embracing pain, finding good problems, building strong boundaries and good values, to accepting that we all die and you’re not special, Mark teaches us to take responsibility for our lives. Supported by research, hilarious anecdotes and absurd examples, Mark finds a way to teach you the art of choosing f*cks that will lead to a meaningful and fulfilling life.
As if posters and pitches weren’t enough, we also created short “viral videos” about our books and what they had to offer. Here’s my (not even close to) viral video:
To be clear, I did not come up with that absurd idea of what one may want out of life: it was another quote from Manson’s book.
We then presented our books and videos to other classes in a mini book fair, during which I had some great interactions with peers who came to my table. That’s all for this post, I highly recommend reading Manson’s book: it’s both meaningful and hilarious, and definitely the best self-help book I’ve ever read. It was much more engaging than Atomic Habits or 7 Habits, which we’ve read in previous years. If you’re wondering about the rest of the title (disappointment panda, drunken poets and LSD), you’ll have to read the book to find out.
So, in closing, consider: What f*cks do you want to give? What problems do you want to solve? What pain do you want to sustain?
Thanks for reading!