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1Charles Bukowski was an alcoholic, a womanizer, a chronic gambler, a lout, a cheapskate, a
2deadbeat, and on his worst days, a poet. He’s probably the last person on earth you would ever look
3to for life advice or expect to see in any sort of self-help book.
4Which is why he’s the perfect place to start.
5Bukowski wanted to be a writer. But for decades his work was rejected by almost every
6magazine, newspaper, journal, agent, and publisher he submitted to. His work was horrible, they said.
7Crude. Disgusting. Depraved. And as the stacks of rejection slips piled up, the weight of his failures
8pushed him deep into an alcohol-fueled depression that would follow him for most of his life.
9Bukowski had a day job as a letter-filer at a post office. He got paid shit money and spent most of
10it on booze. He gambled away the rest at the racetrack. At night, he would drink alone and sometimes
11hammer out poetry on his beat-up old typewriter. Often, he’d wake up on the floor, having passed out
12the night before.
13Thirty years went by like this, most of it a meaningless blur of alcohol, drugs, gambling, and
14prostitutes. Then, when Bukowski was fifty, after a lifetime of failure and self-loathing, an editor at a
15small independent publishing house took a strange interest in him. The editor couldn’t offer Bukowski
16much money or much promise of sales. But he had a weird affection for the drunk loser, so he decided
17to take a chance on him. It was the first real shot Bukowski had ever gotten, and, he realized,
18probably the only one he would ever get. Bukowski wrote back to the editor: “I have one of two
19choices—stay in the post office and go crazy . . . or stay out here and play at writer and starve. I have
20decided to starve.”
21Upon signing the contract, Bukowski wrote his first novel in three weeks. It was called simply
22Post Office. In the dedication, he wrote, “Dedicated to nobody.”
23Bukowski would make it as a novelist and poet. He would go on and publish six novels and
24hundreds of poems, selling over two million copies of his books. His popularity defied everyone’s
25expectations, particularly his own.
26Stories like Bukowski’s are the bread and butter of our cultural narrative. Bukowski’s life
27embodies the American Dream: a man fights for what he wants, never gives up, and eventually
28achieves his wildest dreams. It’s practically a movie waiting to happen. We all look at stories like
29Bukowski’s and say, “See? He never gave up. He never stopped trying. He always believed in
30himself. He persisted against all the odds and made something of himself!”
31It is then strange that on Bukowski
32accepted it, and then wrote honestly about it. He never tried to be anything other than what he was.
33The genius in Bukowski’s work was not in overcoming unbelievable odds or developing himself into
34a shining literary light. It was the opposite. It was his simple ability to be completely, unflinchingly
35honest with himself—especially the worst parts of himself—and to share his failings without
36hesitation or doubt.
37This is the real story of Bukowski’s success: his comfort with himself as a failure. Bukowski
38didn’t give a fuck about success. Even after his fame, he still showed up to poetry readings hammered
39and verbally abused people in his audience. He still exposed himself in public and tried to sleep with
40every woman he could find. Fame and success didn’t make him a better person. Nor was it by
41becoming a better person that he became famous and successful.
42Self-improvement and success often occur together. But that doesn’t necessarily mean they’re the
43same thing.
44Our culture today is obsessively focused on unrealistically positive expectations: Be happier. Be
45healthier. Be the best, better than the rest. Be smarter, faster, richer, sexier, more popular, more
46productive, more envied, and more admired. Be perfect and amazing and crap out twelve-karat-gold
47nuggets before breakfast each morning while kissing your selfie-ready spouse and two and a half kids
48goodbye. Then fly your helicopter to your wonderfully fulfilling job, where you spend your days
49doing incredibly meaningful work that’s likely to save the planet one day.
50But when you stop and really think about it, conventional life advice—all the positive and happy
51self-help stuff we hear all the time—is actually fixating on what you lack. It lasers in on what you
52perceive your personal shortcomings and failures to already be, and then emphasizes them for you.
53You learn about the best ways to make money because you feel you don’t have enough money already.
54You stand in front of the mirror and repeat affirmations saying that you’re beautiful because you feel
55as though you’re not beautiful already. You follow dating and relationship advice because you feel
56that you’re unlovable already. You try goofy visualization exercises about being more successful
57because you feel as though you aren’t successful enough already.
58Ironically, this fixation on the positive—on what’s better, what’s superior—only serves to remind
59us over and over again of what we are not, of what we lack, of what we should have been but failed
60to be. After all, no truly happy person feels the need to stand in front of a mirror and recite that she’s
61happy. She just is.
62There’s a saying in Texas: “The smallest dog barks the loudest.” A confident man doesn’t feel a
63need to prove that he’s confident. A rich woman doesn’t feel a need to convince anybody that she’s
64rich. Either you are or you are not. And if you’re dreaming of something all the time, then you’re
65reinforcing the same unconscious reality over and over: that you are not that.
66Everyone and their TV commercial wants you to believe that the key to a good life is a nicer job,
67or a more rugged car, or a prettier girlfriend, or a hot tub with an inflatable pool for the kids. The
68world is constantly telling you that the path to a better life is more, more, more—buy more, own
69more, make more, fuck more, be more. You are constantly bombarded with messages to give a fuck
70about everything, all the time. Give a fuck about a new TV. Give a fuck about having a better vacation
71than your coworkers. Give a fuck about buying that new lawn ornament. Give a fuck about having the
72right kind of selfie stick.
73Why? My guess: because giving a fuck about more stuff is good for business.
74And while there’s nothing wrong with good business, the problem is that giving too many fucks is
75bad for your mental health. It causes you to become overly attached to the superficial and fake, to
76dedicate your life to chasing a mirage of happiness and satisfaction. The key to a good life is not
77giving a fuck about more; it’s giving a fuck about less, giving a fuck about only what is true and
78immediate and important.
79The Feedback Loop from Hell
80There’s an insidious quirk to your brain that, if you let it, can drive you absolutely batty. Tell me if
81this sounds familiar to you:
82You get anxious about confronting somebody in your life. That anxiety cripples you and you start
83wondering why you’re so anxious. Now you’re becoming anxious about being anxious. Oh no!
84Doubly anxious! Now you’re anxious about your anxiety, which is causing more anxiety. Quick,
85where’s the whiskey?
86Or let’s say you have an anger problem. You get pissed off at the stupidest, most inane stuff, and
87you have no idea why. And the fact that you get pissed off so easily starts to piss you off even more.
88And then, in your petty rage, you realize that being angry all the time makes you a shallow and mean
89person, and you hate this; you hate it so much that you get angry at yourself. Now look at you: you’re
90angry at yourself getting angry about being angry. Fuck you, wall. Here, have a fist.
91Or you’re so worried about doing the right thing all the time that you become worried about how
92much you’re worrying. Or you feel so guilty for every mistake you make that you begin to feel guilty
93about how guilty you’re feeling. Or you get sad and alone so often that it makes you feel even more
94sad and alone just thinking about it.
95Welcome to the Feedback Loop from Hell. Chances are you’ve engaged in it more than a few
96times. Maybe you’re engaging in it right now: “God, I do the Feedback Loop all the time—I’m such a
97loser for doing it. I should stop. Oh my God, I feel like such a loser for calling myself a loser. I
98should stop calling myself a loser. Ah, fuck! I’m doing it again! See? I’m a loser! Argh!”
99Calm down, amigo. Believe it or not, this is part of the beauty of being human. Very few animals
100on earth have the ability to think cogent thoughts to begin with, but we humans have the luxury of
101being able to have thoughts about our thoughts. So I can think about watching Miley Cyrus videos on
102YouTube, and then immediately think about what a sicko I am for wanting to watch Miley Cyrus
103videos on YouTube. Ah, the miracle of consciousness!
104Now here’s the problem: Our society today, through the wonders of consumer culture and heylook-my-life-is-cooler-than-yours
105social media, has bred a whole generation of people who believe
106that having these negative experiences—anxiety, fear, guilt, etc.—is totally not okay. I mean, if you
107look at your Facebook feed, everybody there is having a fucking grand old time. Look, eight people
108got married this week! And some sixteen-year-old on TV got a Ferrari for her birthday. And another
109kid just made two billion dollars inventing an app that automatically delivers you more toilet paper
110when you run out.
111Meanwhile, you’re stuck at home flossing your cat. And you can’t help but think your life sucks
112even more than you thought.
113The Feedback Loop from Hell has become a borderline epidemic, making many of us overly
114stressed, overly neurotic, and overly self-loathing.
115Back in Grandpa’s day, he would feel like shit and think to himself, “Gee whiz, I sure do feel like
116a cow turd today. But hey, I guess that’s just life. Back to shoveling hay.”
117But now? Now if you feel like shit for even five minutes, you’re bombarded with 350 images of
118people totally happy and having amazing fucking lives, and it’s impossible to not feel like there’s
119something wrong with you.
120It’s this last part that gets us into trouble. We feel bad about feeling bad. We feel guilty for feeling
121guilty. We get angry about getting angry. We get anxious about feeling anxious. What is wrong with
122me?
123This is why not giving a fuck is so key. This is why it’s going to save the world. And it’s going to
124save it by accepting that the world is totally fucked and that’s all right, because it’s always been that
125way, and always will be.
126By not giving a fuck that you feel bad, you short-circuit the Feedback Loop from Hell; you say to
127yourself, “I feel like shit, but who gives a fuck?” And then, as if sprinkled by magic fuck-giving fairy
128dust, you stop hating yourself for feeling so bad.
129George Orwell said that to see what’s in front of one’s nose requires a constant struggle. Well, the
130solution to our stress and anxiety is right there in front of our noses, and we’re too busy watching porn
131and advertisements for ab machines that don’t work, wondering why we’re not banging a hot blonde
132with a rocking six-pack, to notice.
133We joke online about “first-world problems,” but we really have become victims of our own
134success. Stress-related health issues, an
135It’s like this one time I tripped on acid and it felt like the more I walked toward a house, the
136farther away the house got from me. And yes, I just used my LSD hallucinations to make a
137philosophical point about happiness. No fucks given.
138As the existential philosopher Albert Camus said (and I’m pretty sure he wasn’t on LSD at the
139time): “You will never be happy if you continue to search for what happiness consists of. You will
140never live if you are looking for the meaning of life.”
141Or put more simply:
142Don’t try.
143Now, I know what you’re saying: “Mark, this is making my nipples all hard, but what about the
144Camaro I’ve been saving up for? What about the beach body I’ve been starving myself for? After all,
145I paid a lot of money for that ab machine! What about the big house on the lake I’ve been dreaming of?
146If I stop giving a fuck about those things—well, then I’ll never achieve anything. I don’t want that to
147happen, do I?”
148So glad you asked.
149Ever notice that sometimes when you care less about something, you do better at it? Notice how
150it’s often the person who is the least invested in the success of something that actually ends up
151achieving it? Notice how sometimes when you stop giving a fuck, everything seems to fall into place?
152What’s with that?
153What’s interesting about the backwards law is that it’s called “backwards” for a reason: not
154giving a fuck works in reverse. If pursuing the positive is a negative, then pursuing the negative
155generates the positive. The pain you pursue in the gym results in better all-around health and energy.
156The failures in business are what lead to a better understanding of what’s necessary to be successful.
157Being open with your insecurities paradoxically makes you more confident and charismatic around
158others. The pain of honest confrontation is what generates the greatest trust and respect in your
159relationships. Suffering through your fears and anxieties is what allows you to build courage and
160perseverance.
161Seriously, I could keep going, but you get the point. Everything worthwhile in life is won through
162surmounting the associated negative experience. Any attempt to escape the negative, to avoid it or
163quash it or silence it, only backfires. The avoidance of suffering is a form of suffering. The avoidance
164of struggle is a struggle. The denial of failure is a failure. Hiding what is shameful is itself a form of
165shame.
166Pain is an inextricable thread in the fabric of life, and to tear it out is not only impossible, but
167destructive: attempting to tear it out unravels everything else with it. To try to avoid pain is to give
168too many fucks about pain. In contrast, if you’re able to not give a fuck about the pain, you become
169unstoppable.
170In my life, I have given a fuck about many things. I have also not given a fuck about many things.
171And like the road not taken, it was the fucks not given that made all the difference.
172Chances are you know somebody in your life who, at one time or another, did not give a fuck and
173then went on to accomplish amazing feats. Perhaps there was a time in your own life when you simply
174did not give a fuck and excelled to some extraordinary height. For myself, quitting my day job in
175finance after only six weeks to start an Internet business ranks pretty high up there in my own “didn’t
176give a fuck” hall of fame. Same with deciding to sell most of my possessions and move to South
177America. Fucks given? None. Just went and did it.
178These moments of non-fuckery are the moments that most define our lives. The major switch in
179careers; the spontaneous choice to drop out of college and join a rock band; the decision to finally
180dump that deadbeat boyfriend whom you caught wearing your pantyhose a few too many times.
181To not give a fuck is to stare down life’s most terrifying and difficult challenges and still take
182action.
183While not giving a fuck may seem simple on the surface, it’s a whole new bag of burritos under
184the hood. I don’t even know what that sentence means, but I don’t give a fuck. A bag of burritos
185sounds awesome, so let’s just go with it.
186Most of us struggle throughout our lives by giving too many fucks in situations where fucks do not
187deserve to be given. We give too many fucks about the rude gas station attendant who gave us our
188change in nickels. We give too many fucks when a show we liked was canceled on TV. We give too
189many fucks when our coworkers don’t bother asking us about our awesome weekend.
190Meanwhile, our credit cards are maxed out, our dog hates us, and Junior is snorting meth in the
191bathroom, yet we’re getting pissed off about nickels and Everybody Loves Raymond.
192Look, this is how it works. You’re going to die one day. I know that’s kind of obvious, but I just
193wanted to remind you in case you’d forgotten. You and everyone you know are going to be dead soon.
194And in the short amount of time between here and there, you have a limited amount of fucks to give.
195Very few, in fact. And if you go around giving a fuck about everything and everyone without conscious
196thought or choice—well, then you’re going to get fucked.
197There is a subtle art to not giving a fuck. And though the concept may sound ridiculous and I may
198sound like an asshole, what I’m talking about here is essentially learning how to focus and prioritize
199your thoughts effectively—how to pick and choose what matters to you and what does not matter to
200you based on finely honed personal values. This is incredibly difficult. It takes a lifetime of practice
201and discipline to achieve. And you will regularly fail. But it is perhaps the most worthy struggle one
202can undertake in one’s life. It is perhaps the only struggle in one’s life.
203Because when you give too many fucks—when you give a fuck about everyone and everything—
204you will feel that you’re perpetually entitled to be comfortable and happy at all times, that everything
205is supposed to be just exactly the fucking way you want it to be. This is a sickness. And it will eat you
206alive. You will see every adversity as an injustice, every challenge as a failure, every inconvenience
207as a personal slight, every disagreement as a betrayal. You will be confined to your own petty, skullsized
208hell, burning with entitlement and bluster, running circles around your very own personal
209Feedback Loop from Hell, in constant motion yet arriving nowhere.
210The Subtle Art of Not Giving a Fuck
211When most people envision giving no fucks whatsoever, they imagine a kind of serene indifference to
212everything, a calm that weathers all storms. They imagine and aspire to be a person who is shaken by
213nothing and caves in to no one.
214There’s a name for a person who finds no emotion or meaning in anything: a psychopath. Why you
215would want to emulate a psychopath, I have no fucking clue.
216So what does not giving a fuck mean? Let’s look at three “subtleties” that should help clarify the
217matter.
218Subtlety #1: Not giving a fuck does not mean being indifferent; it means being comfortable
219with being different.
220Let’s be clear. There’s absolutely nothing admirable or confident about indifference. People who
221are indifferent are lame and scared. They’re couch potatoes and Internet trolls. In fact, indifferent
222people often attempt to be indifferent because in reality they give way too many fucks. They give a
223fuck about what everyone thinks of their hair, so they never bother washing or combing it. They give a
224fuck about what everyone thinks of their ideas, so they hide behind sarcasm and self-righteous snark.
225They’re afraid to let anyone get close to them, so they imagine themselves as some special, unique
226snowflake who has problems that nobody else would ever understand.
227Indifferent people are afraid of the world and the repercussions of their own choices. That’s why
228they don’t make any meaningful choices. They hide in a gray, emotionless pit of their own making,
229self-absorbed and self-pitying, perpetually distracting themselves from this unfortunate thing
230demanding their time and energy called life.
231Because here’s a sneaky truth about life. There’s no such thing as not giving a fuck. You must give
232a fuck about something. It’s part of our biology to always care about something and therefore to
233always give a fuck.
234The question, then, is, What do we give a fuck about? What are we choosing to give a fuck about?
235And how can we not give a fuck about what ultimately does not matter?
236My mother was recently screwed out of a large chunk of money by a close friend of hers. Had I
237been indifferent, I would have shrugged my shoulders, sipped my mocha, and downloaded another
238season of The Wire. Sorry, Mom.
239But instead, I was indignant. I was pissed off. I said, “No, screw that, Mom. We’re going to
240lawyer the fuck up and go after this asshole. Why? Because I don’t give a fuck. I will ruin this guy’s
241life if I have to.”
242This illustrates the first subtlety of not giving a fuck. When we say, “Damn, watch out, Mark
243Manson just don’t give a fuck,” we don’t mean that Mark Manson doesn’t care about anything; on the
244contrary, we mean that Mark Manson doesn’t care about adversity in the face of his goals, he doesn’t
245care about pissing some people off to do what he feels is right or important or noble. We mean that
246Mark Manson is the type of guy who would write about himself in third person just because he
247thought it was the right thing to do. He just doesn’t give a fuck.
248This is what is so admirable. No, not me, dumbass—the overcoming adversity stuff, the
249willingness to be different, an outcast, a pariah, all for the sake of one’s own values. The willingness
250to stare failure in the face and shove your middle finger back at it. The people who don’t give a fuck
251about adversity or failure or embarrassing themselves or shitting the bed a few times. The people
252who just laugh and then do what they believe in anyway. Because they know it’s right. They know it’s
253more important than they are, more important than their own feelings and their own pride and their
254own ego. They say, “Fuck it,” not to everything in life, but rather to everything unimportant in life.
255They reserve their fucks for what truly matters. Friends. Family. Purpose. Burritos. And an occasional
256lawsuit or two. And because of that, because they reserve their fucks for only the big things that
257matter, people give a fuck about them in return.
258Because here’s another sneaky little truth about life. You can’t be an important and life-changing
259presence for some people without also being a joke and an embarrassment to others. You just can’t.
260Because there’s no such thing as a lack of adversity. It doesn’t exist. The old saying goes that no
261matter where you go, there you are. Well, the same is true for adversity and failure. No matter where
262you go, there’s a five-hundred-pound load of shit waiting for you. And that’s perfectly fine. The point
263isn’t to get away from the shit. The point is to find the shit you enjoy dealing with.
264Subtlety #2: To not give a fuck about adversity, you must first give a fuck about something
265more important than adversity.
266Imagine you’re at a grocery store, and you watch an elderly lady scream at the cashier, berating
267him for not accepting her thirty-cent coupon. Why does this lady give a fuck? It’s just thirty cents.
268I’ll tell you why: That lady probably doesn’t have anything better to do with her days than to sit at
269home cutting out coupons. She’s old and lonely. Her kids are dickheads and never visit. She hasn’t
270had sex in over thirty years. She can’t fart without extreme lower-back pain. Her pension is on its last
271legs, and she’s probably going to die in a diaper thinking she’s in Candy Land.
272So she snips coupons. That’s all she’s got. It’s her and her damn coupons. It’s all she can give a
273fuck about because there is nothing else to give a fuck about. And so when that pimply-faced
274seventeen-year-old cashier refuses to accept one of them, when he defends his cash register’s purity
275the way knights used to defend maidens’ virginity, you can bet Granny is going to erupt. Eighty years
276of fucks will rain down all at once, like a fiery hailstorm of “Back in my day” and “People used to
277show more respect” stories.
278The problem with people who hand out fucks like ice cream at a goddamn summer camp is that
279they don’t have anything more fuck-worthy to dedicate their fucks to.
280If you find yourself consistently giving too many fucks about trivial shit that bothers you—your exboyfriend’s
281new Facebook picture, how quickly the batteries die in the TV remote, missing out on yet
282another two-for-one sale on hand sanitizer—chances are you don’t have much going on in your life to
283give a legitimate fuck about. And that’s your real problem. Not the hand sanitizer. Not the TV remote.
284I once heard an artist say that when a person has no problems, the mind automatically finds a way
285to invent some. I think what most people—especially educated, pampered middle-class white people
286—consider “life problems” are really just side effects of not having anything more important to worry
287about.
288It then follows that finding something important and meaningful in your life is perhaps the most
289productive use of your time and energy. Because if you don’t find that meaningful something, your
290fucks will be given to meaningless and frivolous causes.
291Subtlety #3: Whether you realize it or not, you are always choosing what to give a fuck
292about.
293People aren’t just born not giving a fuck. In fact, we’re born giving way too many fucks. Ever
294watch a kid cry his eyes out because his hat is the wrong shade of blue? Exactly. Fuck that kid.
295When we’re young, everything is new and exciting, and everything seems to matter so much.
296Therefore, we give tons of fucks. We give a fuck about everything and everyone—about what people
297are saying about us, about whether that cute boy/girl called us back or not, about whether our socks
298match or not, or what color our birthday balloon is.
299As we get older, with the benefit of experience (and having seen so much time slip by), we begin
300to notice that most of these sorts of things have little lasting impact on our lives. Those people whose
301opinions we cared about so much before are no longer present in our lives. Rejections that were
302painful in the moment have actually worked out for the best. We realize how little attention people
303pay to the superficial details about us, and we choose not to obsess so much over them.
304Essentially, we become more selective about the fucks we’re willing to give. This is something
305called maturity. It’s nice; you should try it sometime. Maturity is what happens when one learns to
306only give a fuck about what’s truly fuckworthy. As Bunk Moreland said to his partner Detective
307McNulty in The Wire (which, fuck you, I still downloaded): “That’s what you get for giving a fuck
308when it wasn’t your turn to give a fuck.”
309Then, as we grow older and enter middle age, something else begins to change. Our energy level
310drops. Our identity solidifies. We know who we are and we accept ourselves, including some of the
311parts we aren’t thrilled about.
312And, in a strange way, this is liberating. We no longer need to give a fuck about everything. Life is
313just what it is. We accept it, warts and all. We realize that we’re never going to cure cancer or go to
314the moon or feel Jennifer Aniston’s tits. And that’s okay. Life goes on. We now reserve our everdwindling
315fucks for the most truly fuck-worthy parts of our lives: our families, our best friends, our
316golf swing. And, to our astonishment, this is enough. This simplification actually makes us really
317fucking happy on a consistent basis. And we start to think, Maybe that crazy alcoholic Bukowski was
318onto something. Don’t try.
319So Mark, What the Fuck Is the Point of This Book Anyway?
320This book will help you think a little bit more clearly about what you’re choosing to find important in
321life and what you’re choosing to find unimportant.
322I believe that today we’re facing a psychological epidemic, one in which people no longer realize
323it’s okay for things to suck sometimes. I know that sounds intellectually lazy on the surface, but I
324promise you, it’s a life/death sort of issue.
325Because when we believe that it’s not okay for things to suck sometimes, then we unconsciously
326start blaming ourselves. We start to feel as though something is inherently wrong with us, which
327drives us to all sorts of overcompensation, like buying forty pairs of shoes or downing Xanax with a
328vodka chaser on a Tuesday night or shooting up a school bus full of kids.
329This belief that it’s not okay to be inadequate sometimes is the source of the growing Feedback
330Loop from Hell that is coming to dominate our culture.
331The idea of not giving a fuck is a simple way of reorienting our expectations for life and choosing
332what is important and what is not. Developing this ability leads to something I like to think of as a
333kind of “practical enlightenment.”
334No, not that airy-fairy, eternal bliss, end-of-all-suffering, bullshitty kind of enlightenment. On the
335contrary, I see practical enlightenment as becoming comfortable with the idea that some suffering is
336always inevitable—that no matter what you do, life is comprised of failures, loss, regrets, and even
337death. Because once you become comfortable with all the shit that life throws at you (and it will
338throw a lot of shit, trust me), you become invincible in a sort of low-level spiritual way. After all, the
339only way to overcome pain is to first learn how to bear it.
340This book doesn’t give a fuck about alleviating your problems or your pain. And that is precisely
341why you will know it’s being honest. This book is not some guide to greatness—it couldn’t be,
342because greatness is merely an illusion in our minds, a made-up destination that we obligate
343ourselves to pursue, our own psychological Atlantis.
344Instead, this book will turn your pain into a tool, your trauma into power, and your problems into
345slightly better problems. That is real progress. Think of it as a guide to suffering and how to do it
346better, more meaningfully, with more compassion and more humility. It’s a book about moving lightly
347despite your heavy burdens, resting easier with your greatest fears, laughing at your tears as you cry
348them.
349This book will not teach you how to gain or achieve, but rather how to lose and let go. It will
350teach you to take inventory of your life and scrub out all but the most important items. It will teach you
351to close your eyes and trust that you can fall backwards and still be okay. It will teach you to give
352fewer fucks. It will teach you to not try.
353CHAPTER 2
354Happiness Is a Problem
355About twenty-five hundred years ago, in the Himalayan foothills of present-day Nepal, there lived in
356a great palace a king who was going to have a son. For this son the king had a particularly grand idea:
357he would make the child’s life perfect. The child would never know a moment of suffering—every
358need, every desire, would be accounted for at all times.
359The king built high walls around the palace that prevented the prince from knowing the outside
360world. He spoiled the child, lavishing him with food and gifts, surrounding him with servants who
361catered to his every whim. And just as planned, the child grew up ignorant of the routine cruelties of
362human existence.
363All of the prince’s childhood went on like this. But despite the endless luxury and opulence, the
364prince became kind of a pissed-off young man. Soon, every experience felt empty and valueless. The
365problem was that no matter what his father gave him, it never seemed enough, never meant anything.
366So late one night, the prince snuck out of the palace to see what was beyond its walls. He had a
367servant drive him through the local village, and what he saw horrified him.
368For the first time in his life, the prince saw human suffering. He saw sick people, old people,
369homeless people, people in pain, even people dying.
370The prince returned to the palace and found himself in a sort of existential crisis. Not knowing
371how to process what he’d seen, he got all emo about everything and complained a lot. And, as is so
372typical of young men, the prince ended up blaming his father for the very things his father had tried to
373do for him. It was the riches, the prince thought, that had made him so miserable, that had made life
374seem so meaningless. He decided to run away.
375But the prince was more like his father than he knew. He had grand ideas too. He wouldn’t just
376run away; he would give up his royalty, his family, and all of his possessions and live in the streets,
377sleeping in dirt like an animal. There he would starve himself, torture himself, and beg for scraps of
378food from strangers for the rest of his life.
379The next night, the prince snuck out of the palace again, this time never to return. For years he
380lived as a bum, a discarded and forgotten remnant of society, the dog shit caked to the bottom of the
381social totem pole. And as planned, the prince suffered greatly. He suffered through disease, hunger,
382pain, loneliness, and decay. He confronted the brink of death itself, often limited to eating a single nut
383each day.
384A few years went by. Then a few more. And then . . . nothing happened. The prince began to
385notice that this life of suffering wasn’t all that it was cracked up to be. It wasn’t bringing him the
386insight he had desired. It wasn’t revealing any deeper mystery of the world or its ultimate purpose.
387In fact, the prince came to know what the rest of us have always kind of known: that suffering
388totally sucks. And it’s not necessarily that meaningful either. As with being rich, there is no value in
389suffering when it’s done without purpose. And soon the prince came to the conclusion that his grand
390idea, like his father’s, was in fact a fucking terrible idea and he should probably go do something else
391instead.
392Totally confused, the prince cleaned himself up and went and found a big tree near a river. He
393decided that he would sit under that tree and not get up until he came up with another grand idea.
394As the legend goes, the confused prince sat under that tree for forty-nine days. We won’t delve
395into the biological viability of sitting in the same spot for forty-nine days, but let’s just say that in that
396time the prince came to a number of profound realizations.
397One of those realizations was this: that life itself is a form of suffering. The rich suffer because of
398their riches. The poor suffer because of their poverty. People without a family suffer because they
399have no family. People with a family suffer because of their family. People who pursue worldly
400pleasures suffer because of their worldly pleasures. People who abstain from worldly pleasures
401suffer because of their abstention.
402This isn’t to say that all suffering is equal. Some suffering is certainly more painful than other
403suffering. But we all must suffer nonetheless.
404Years later, the prince would build his own philosophy and share it with the world, and this
405would be its first and central tenet: that pain and loss are inevitable and we should let go of trying to
406resist them. The prince would later become known as the Buddha. And in case you haven’t heard of
407him, he was kind of a big deal.
408There is a premise that underlies a lot of our assumptions and beliefs. The premise is that
409happiness is algorithmic, that it can be worked for and earned and achieved as if it were getting
410accepted to law school or building a really complicated Lego set. If I achieve X, then I can be happy.
411If I look like Y, then I can be happy. If I can be with a person like Z, then I can be happy.
412This premise, though, is the problem. Happiness is not a solvable equation. Dissatisfaction and
413unease are inherent parts of human nature and, as we’ll see, necessary components to creating
414consistent happiness. The Buddha argued this from a theological and philosophical perspective. I will
415make the same argument in this chapter, but I will make it from a biological perspective, and with
416pandas.
417The Misadventures of Disappointment Panda
418If I could invent a superhero, I would invent one called Disappointment Panda. He’d wear a cheesy
419eye mask and a shirt (with a giant capital T on it) that was way too small for his big panda belly, and
420his superpower would be to tell people harsh truths about themselves that they needed to hear but
421didn’t want to accept.
422He would go door-to-door like a Bible salesman and ring doorbells and say things like, “Sure,
423making a lot of money makes you feel good, but it won’t make your kids love you,” or “If you have to
424ask yourself if you trust your wife, then you probably don’t,” or “What you consider ‘friendship’ is
425really just your constant attempts to impress people.” Then he’d tell the homeowner to have a nice
426day and saunter on down to the next house.
427It would be awesome. And sick. And sad. And uplifting. And necessary. After all, the greatest
428truths in life are usually the most unpleasant to hear.
429Disappointment Panda would be the hero that none of us would want but all of us would need.
430He’d be the proverbial vegetables to our mental diet of junk food. He’d make our lives better despite
431making us feel worse. He’d make us stronger by tearing us down, brighten our future by showing us
432the darkness. Listening to him would be like watching a movie where the hero dies in the end: you
433love it even more despite making you feel horrible, because it feels real.
434So while we’re here, allow me to put on my Disappointment Panda mask and drop another
435unpleasant truth on you:
436We suffer for the simple reason that suffering is biologically useful. It is nature’s preferred agent
437for inspiring change. We have evolved to always live with a certain degree of dissatisfaction and
438insecurity, because it’s the mildly dissatisfied and insecure creature that’s going to do the most work
439to innovate and survive. We are wired to become dissatisfied with whatever we have and satisfied by
440only what we do not have. This constant dissatisfaction has kept our species fighting and striving,
441building and conquering. So no—our own pain and misery aren’t a bug of human evolution; they’re a
442feature.
443Pain, in all of its forms, is our body’s most effective means of spurring action. Take something as
444simple as stubbing your toe. If you’re like me, when you stub your toe you scream enough four-letter
445words to make Pope Francis cry. You also probably blame some poor inanimate object for your
446suffering. “Stupid table,” you say. Or maybe you even go so far as to question your entire interior
447design philosophy based on your throbbing foot: “What kind of idiot puts a table there anyway?
448Seriously?”
449But I digress. That horrible stubbed-toe-induced pain, the one you and I and the pope hate so
450much, exists for an important reason. Physical pain is a product of our nervous system, a feedback
451mechanism to give us a sense of our own physical proportions—where we can and cannot move and
452what we can and cannot touch. When we exceed those limits, our nervous system duly punishes us to
453make sure that we pay attention and never do it again.
454And this pain, as much as we hate it, is useful. Pain is what teaches us what to pay attention to
455when we’re young or careless. It helps show us what’s good for us versus what’s bad for us. It helps
456us understand and adhere to our own limitations. It teaches us to not fuck around near hot stoves or
457stick metal objects into electrical sockets. Therefore, it’s not always beneficial to avoid pain and
458seek pleasure, since pain can, at times, be life-or-death important to our well-being.
459But pain is not merely physical. As anyone who has had to sit through the first Star Wars prequel
460can tell you, we humans are capable of experiencing acute psychological pain as well. In fact,
461research has found that our brains don’t register much difference between physical pain and
462psychological pain. So when I tell you that my first girlfriend cheating on me and leaving me felt like
463having an ice pick slowly inserted into the center of my heart, that’s because, well, it hurt so much I
464might as well have had an ice pick slowly inserted into the center of my heart.
465Like physical pain, our psychological pain is an indication of something out of equilibrium, some
466limitation that has been exceeded. And like our physical pain, our psychological pain is not
467necessarily always bad or even undesirable. In some cases, experiencing emotional or psychological
468pain can be healthy or necessary. Just like stubbing our toe teaches us to walk into fewer tables, the
469emotional pain of rejection or failure teaches us how to avoid making the same mistakes in the future.
470And this is what’s so dangerous about a society that coddles itself more and more from the
471inevitable discomforts of life: we lose the benefits of experiencing healthy doses of pain, a loss that
472disconnects us from the reality of the world around us.
473You may salivate at the thought of a problem-free life full of everlasting happiness and eternal
474compassion, but back here on earth the problems never cease. Seriously, problems don’t end.
475Disappointment Panda just dropped by. We had margaritas, and he told me all about it: problems
476never fucking go away, he said—they just improve. Warren Buffett’s got money problems; the drunk
477hobo down at Kwik-E Mart’s got money problems. Buffett’s just got better money problems than the
478hobo. All of life is like this.
479“Life is essentially an endless series of problems, Mark,” the panda told me. He sipped his drink
480and adjusted the little pink umbrella. “The solution to one problem is merely the creation of the next
481one.”
482A moment passed, and then I wondered where the fuck the talking panda came from. And while
483we’re at it, who made these margaritas?
484“Don’t hope for a life without problems,” the panda said. “There’s no such thing. Instead, hope
485for a life full of good problems.”
486And with that, he set his glass down, adjusted his sombrero, and sauntered off into the sunset.
487Happiness Comes from Solving Problems
488Problems are a constant in life. When you solve your health problem by buying a gym membership,
489you create new problems, like having to get up early to get to the gym on time, sweating like a methhead
490for thirty minutes on an elliptical, and then getting showered and changed for work so you don’t
491stink up the whole office. When you solve your problem of not spending enough time with your
492partner by designating Wednesday night “date night,” you generate new problems, such as figuring out
493what to do every Wednesday that you both won’t hate, making sure you have enough money for nice
494dinners, rediscovering the chemistry and spark you two feel you’ve lost, and unraveling the logistics
495of fucking in a small bathtub filled with too many bubbles.
496Problems never stop; they merely get exchanged and/or upgraded.
497Happiness comes from solving problems. The keyword here is “solving.” If you’re avoiding your
498problems or feel like you don’t have any problems, then you’re going to make yourself miserable. If
499you feel like you have problems that you can’t solve, you will likewise make yourself miserable. The
500secret sauce is in the solving of the problems, not in not having problems in the first place.
501To be happy we need something to solve. Happiness is therefore a form of action; it’s an activity,
502not something that is passively bestowed upon you, not something that you magically discover in a
503top-ten article on the Huffington Post or from any specific guru or teacher. It doesn’t magically appear
504when you finally make enough money to add on that extra room to the house. You don’t find it waiting
505for you in a place, an idea, a job—or even a book, for that matter.
506Happiness is a constant work-in-progress, because solving problems is a constant work-inprogress—the
507solutions to today’s problems will lay the foundation for tomorrow’s problems, and so
508on. True happiness occurs only when you find the problems you enjoy having and enjoy solving.
509Sometimes those problems are simple: eating good food, traveling to some new place, winning at
510the new video game you just bought. Other times those problems are abstract and complicated: fixing
511your relationship with your mother, finding a career you can feel good about, developing better
512friendships.
513Whatever your problems are, the concept is the same: solve problems; be happy. Unfortunately,
514for many people, life doesn’t feel that simple. That’s because they fuck things up in at least one of two
515ways:
5161. Denial. Some people deny that their problems exist in the first place. And because they deny
517reality, they must constantly delude or distract themselves from reality. This may make them feel
518good in the short term, but it leads to a life of insecurity, neuroticism, and emotional repression.
5192. Victim Mentality. Some choose to believe that there is nothing they can do to solve their
520problems, even when they in fact could. Victims seek to blame others for their problems or blame
521outside circumstances. This may make them feel better in the short term, but it leads to a life of
522anger, helplessness, and despair.
523People deny and blame others for their problems for the simple reason that it’s easy and feels
524good, while solving problems is hard and often feels bad. Forms of blame and denial give us a quick
525high. They are a way to temporarily escape our problems, and that escape can provide us a quick rush
526that makes us feel better.
527Highs come in many forms. Whether it’s a substance like alcohol, the moral righteousness that
528comes from blaming others, or the thrill of some new risky adventure, highs are shallow and
529unproductive ways to go about one’s life. Much of the self-help world is predicated on peddling highs
530to people rather than solving legitimate problems. Many self-help gurus teach you new forms of
531denial and pump you up with exercises that feel good in the short term, while ignoring the underlying
532issue. Remember, nobody who is actually happy has to stand in front of a mirror and tell himself that
533he’s happy.
534Highs also generate addiction. The more you rely on them to feel better about your underlying
535problems, the more you will seek them out. In this sense, almost anything can become addictive,
536depending on the motivation behind using it. We all have our chosen methods to numb the pain of our
537problems, and in moderate doses there is nothing wrong with this. But the longer we avoid and the
538longer we numb, the more painful it will be when we finally do confront our issues.
539Emotions Are Overrated
540Emotions evolved for one specific purpose: to help us live and reproduce a little bit better. That’s it.
541They’re feedback mechanisms telling us that something is either likely right or likely wrong for us—
542nothing more, nothing less.
543Much as the pain of touching a hot stove teaches you not to touch it again, the sadness of being
544alone teaches you not to do the things that made you feel so alone again. Emotions are simply
545biological signals designed to nudge you in the direction of beneficial change.
546Look, I don’t mean to make light of your midlife crisis or the fact that your drunk dad stole your
547bike when you were eight years old and you still haven’t gotten over it, but when it comes down to it,
548if you feel crappy it’s because your brain is telling you that there’s a problem that’s unaddressed or
549unresolved. In other words, negative emotions are a call to action. When you feel them, it’s because
550you’re supposed to do something. Positive emotions, on the other hand, are rewards for taking the
551proper action. When you feel them, life seems simple and there is nothing else to do but enjoy it.
552Then, like everything else, the positive emotions go away, because more problems inevitably emerge.
553Emotions are part of the equation of our lives, but not the entire equation. Just because something
554feels good doesn’t mean it is good. Just because something feels bad doesn’t mean it is bad. Emotions
555are merely signposts, suggestions that our neurobiology gives us, not commandments. Therefore, we
556shouldn’t always trust our own emotions. In fact, I believe we should make a habit of questioning
557them.
558Many people are taught to repress their emotions for various personal, social, or cultural reasons
559—particularly negative emotions. Sadly, to deny one’s negative emotions is to deny many of the
560feedback mechanisms that help a person solve problems. As a result, many of these repressed
561individuals struggle to deal with problems throughout their lives. And if they can’t solve problems,
562then they can’t be happy. Remember, pain serves a purpose.
563But then there are those people who overidentify with their emotions. Everything is justified for
564no other reason than they felt it. “Oh, I broke your windshield, but I was really mad; I couldn’t help
565it.” Or “I dropped out of school and moved to Alaska just because it felt right.” Decision-making
566based on emotional intuition, without the aid of reason to keep it in line, pretty much always sucks.
567You know who bases their entire lives on their emotions? Three-year-old kids. And dogs. You know
568what else three-year-olds and dogs do? Shit on the carpet.
569An obsession and overinvestment in emotion fails us for the simple reason that emotions never
570last. Whatever makes us happy today will no longer make us happy tomorrow, because our biology
571always needs something more. A fixation on happiness inevitably amounts to a never-ending pursuit
572of “something else”—a new house, a new relationship, another child, another pay raise. And despite
573all of our sweat and strain, we end up feeling eerily similar to how we started: inadequate.
574Psychologists sometimes refer to this concept as the “hedonic treadmill”: the idea that we’re
575always working hard to change our life situation, but we actually never feel very different.
576This is why our problems are recursive and unavoidable. The person you marry is the person you
577fight with. The house you buy is the house you repair. The dream job you take is the job you stress
578over. Everything comes with an inherent sacrifice—whatever makes us feel good will also inevitably
579make us feel bad. What we gain is also what we lose. What creates our positive experiences will
580define our negative experiences.
581This is a difficult pill to swallow. We like the idea that there’s some form of ultimate happiness
582that can be attained. We like the idea that we can alleviate all of our suffering permanently. We like
583the idea that we can feel fulfilled and satisfied with our lives forever.
584But we cannot.
585Choose Your Struggle
586If I ask you, “What do you want out of life?” and you say something like, “I want to be happy and have
587a great family and a job I like,” your response is so common and expected that it doesn’t really mean
588anything.
589Everybody enjoys what feels good. Everyone wants to live a carefree, happy, and easy life, to fall
590in love and have amazing sex and relationships, to look perfect and make money and be popular and
591well-respected and admired and a total baller to the point that people part like the Red Sea when they
592walk into the room.
593Everybody wants that. It’s easy to want that.
594A more interesting question, a question that most people never consider, is, “What pain do you
595want in your life? What are you willing to struggle for?” Because that seems to be a greater
596determinant of how our lives turn out.
597For example, most people want to get the corner office and make a boatload of money—but not
598many people want to suffer through sixty-hour workweeks, long commutes, obnoxious paperwork, and
599arbitrary corporate hierarchies to escape the confines of an infinite cubicle hell.
600Most people want to have great sex and an awesome relationship, but not everyone is willing to
601go through the tough conversations, the awkward silences, the hurt feelings, and the emotional
602psychodrama to get there. And so they settle. They settle and wonder, “What if?” for years and years,
603until the question morphs from “What if?” into “What else?” And when the lawyers go home and the
604alimony check is in the mail, they say, “What for?” If not for their lowered standards and expectations
605twenty years prior, then what for?
606Because happiness requires struggle. It grows from problems. Joy doesn’t just sprout out of the
607ground like daisies and rainbows. Real, serious, lifelong fulfillment and meaning have to be earned
608through the choosing and managing of our struggles. Whether you suffer from anxiety or loneliness or
609obsessive-compulsive disorder or a dickhead boss who ruins half of your waking hours every day,
610the solution lies in the acceptance and active engagement of that negative experience—not the
611avoidance of it, not the salvation from it.
612People want an amazing physique. But you don’t end up with one unless you legitimately
613appreciate the pain and physical stress that come with living inside a gym for hour upon hour, unless
614you love calculating and calibrating the food you eat, planning your life out in tiny plate–sized
615portions.
616People want to start their own business. But you don’t end up a successful entrepreneur unless you
617find a way to appreciate the risk, the uncertainty, the repeated failures, the insane hours devoted to
618something that may earn absolutely nothing.
619People want a partner, a spouse. But you don’t end up attracting someone amazing without
620appreciating the emotional turbulence that comes with weathering rejections, building the sexual
621tension that never gets released, and staring blankly at a phone that never rings. It’s part of the game of
622love. You can’t win if you don’t play.
623What determines your success isn’t, “What do you want to enjoy?” The relevant question is,
624“What pain do you want to sustain?” The path to happiness is a path full of shitheaps and shame.
625You have to choose something. You can’t have a pain-free life. It can’t all be roses and unicorns
626all the time. Pleasure is the easy question. And pretty much all of us have a similar answer.
627The more interesting question is the pain. What is the pain that you want to sustain? That’s the
628hard question that matters, the question that will actually get you somewhere. It’s the question that can
629change a perspective, a life. It’s what makes me, me, and you, you. It’s what defines us and separates
630us and ultimately brings us together.
631For most of my adolescence and young adulthood, I fantasized about being a musician—a rock
632star, in particular. Any badass guitar song I heard, I would always close my eyes and envision myself
633up on stage, playing it to the screams of the crowd, people absolutely losing their minds to my sweet
634finger-noodling glory. This fantasy could keep me occupied for hours on end. For me, it was never a
635question of if I’d ever be up playing in front of screaming crowds, but when. I had it all planned out. I
636was simply biding my time before I could invest the proper amount of energy and effort into getting
637out there and making my mark. First I needed to finish school. Then I needed to make some extra
638money to buy gear. Then I needed to find enough free time to practice. Then I had to network and plan
639my first project. Then . . . and then nothing.
640Despite my fantasizing about this for over half my lifetime, the reality never came to fruition. And
641it took me a long time and a lot of struggle to finally figure out why: I didn’t actually want it.
642I was in love with the result—the image of me on stage, people cheering, me rocking out, pouring
643my heart into what I was playing—but I wasn’t in love with the process. And because of that, I failed
644at it. Repeatedly. Hell, I didn’t even try hard enough to fail at it. I hardly tried at all. The daily
645drudgery of practicing, the logistics of finding a group and rehearsing, the pain of finding gigs and
646actually getting people to show up and give a shit, the broken strings, the blown tube amp, hauling
647forty pounds of gear to and from rehearsals with no car. It’s a mountain of a dream and a mile-high
648climb to the top. And what it took me a long time to discover is that I didn’t like to climb much. I just
649liked to imagine the summit.
650The common cultural narratives would tell me that I somehow failed myself, that I’m a quitter or a
651loser, that I just didn’t “have it,” that I gave up on my dream and that maybe I let myself succumb to
652the pressures of society.
653But the truth is far less interesting than any of these explanations. The truth is, I thought I wanted
654something, but it turns out I didn’t. End of story.
655I wanted the reward and not the struggle. I wanted the result and not the process. I was in love
656with not the fight but only the victory.
657And life doesn’t work that way.
658Who you are is defined by what you’re willing to struggle for. People who enjoy the struggles of a
659gym are the ones who run triathlons and have chiseled abs and can bench-press a small house. People
660who enjoy long workweeks and the politics of the corporate ladder are the ones who fly to the top of
661it. People who enjoy the stresses and uncertainties of the starving artist lifestyle are ultimately the
662ones who live it and make it.
663This is not about willpower or grit. This is not another admonishment of “no pain, no gain.” This
664is the most simple and basic component of life: our struggles determine our successes. Our problems
665birth our happiness, along with slightly better, slightly upgraded problems.
666See: it’s a never-ending upward spiral. And if you think at any point you’re allowed to stop
667climbing, I’m afraid you’re missing the point. Because the joy is in the climb itself.