"If it feels like you versus the world, chances are it's just you versus yourself." (p. 140)
Another long flight, another book devoured from cover to cover. This one was lent to me by a friend – which, naturally and somewhat fiendishly, made me determined to plough through it. To my surprise, I enjoyed it enough to feel genuinely motivated to write about it.
What a book.
Date complete | Title | Author | Rating |
|---|---|---|---|
11.01.25 | Elephants Can Remember | Agatha Christie | 3 |
16.02.25 | Seven Years in Tibet | Heinrich Harrer | 4.5 |
03.11.25 | The Subtle Art of Not Giving a F*ck | Mark Manson | 3.5 |
Manson’s The Subtle Art of Not Giving a Fuck: A Counterintuitive Approach to Living a Good Life carries within it the potential to shift your perspective - though, to be fair, so does just about everything, and that’s precisely one of the book’s main messages.
Across nine chapters, Manson fleshes out the role of perception and how it can either spiral us into a depression or propel us towards happiness. His delivery is crude, heavily peppered with profanity and lewd allusions, but beneath the brashness his ideas are surprisingly sound. Even with my limited familiarity with Buddhism, I found many of his philosophies strikingly aligned with its teachings.
Before the praise, though, a few points held the book back from a full 5 stars.
One of the earliest missteps, for me, was Manson’s discussion of Bukowski’s “don’t try.” There’s a profound difference between trying for personal growth and trying to keep up with the Joneses. The nuance felt missing, especially since later chapters practically implore the reader to try - intensely - in refining their focus toward meaningful values.
I also struggled with the section on “victimhood chic.” Manson argues that our culture fosters outrage and personal irresponsibility. Whether or not this is true, the discussion risks minimising the experiences of people who are actual victims of abuse... Similarly, his assertion that “in the process of changing your values, you’ll feel like a failure and will experience rejection” felt too sweeping to sit comfortably.
And then there’s Manson himself. Much of the book dwells on what reads as his own entitled, bratty past. Even in the present, I’m not convinced he’s someone I’d want to spend hours with. At one point he explains that if his wife dresses up for a night out and he dislikes her outfit, he’ll simply tell her - because “honesty is more important to me than feeling good all the time.” To me, there’s honesty, and there’s being an asshole; the difference lies in compassion.
But enough criticism.
Despite the occasional bluntness (and a reliance on stark black-and-white comparisons) Manson writes in a way that appeals to both traditional and reluctant readers. And that matters, because regardless of my earlier qualms, almost everyone could benefit from the book’s core messages.
It’s quick, accessible, and more motivational than I expected, with a well-constructed arc and an almost cinematic final chapter. I’d absolutely recommend it. It took me half a day to read, and yet I suspect I’ll be mulling over its ideas for years.
Below, I’ve highlighted three chapters I found particularly profound.
The movement to raise children’s self-esteem began in the 1970s, when psychologists theorised that higher self-esteem led to better performance and fewer problems. The reasoning seemed simple: make everyone feel good about themselves and society will improve.
But as Manson points out, the logic was flawed:
“It has become an accepted part of our culture today to believe that we are all destined to do something truly extraordinary… If everyone was extraordinary, then by definition no one would be extraordinary.” (p. 60)
In this chapter’s cautionary tale, Jimmy, the quintessential entitled character, blames everyone but himself for his failures and takes full credit for his successes. Entitlement, Manson suggests, is a barrier to self-improvement; when we assume we’re inherently special, we become blind to our own flaws.
The point isn’t to promote pessimism but relief: we don’t need to be exceptional to live meaningful, joyful lives. Letting go of the pressure to be extraordinary grants us freedom - to make mistakes, to choose our own paths, and to appreciate the small, ordinary moments that actually make up our days.
“The more we choose to accept responsibility in our lives, the more power we will exercise over our lives.” (p. 96)
Yet another potent insight in the entire book: we are always choosing.
Every moment offers a choice - how to see a situation, how to respond, how much energy to invest, how much meaning to assign. We can’t control everything that happens to us, but we can control the metrics by which we judge our experiences.
“Many people may be to blame for your unhappiness, but nobody is ever responsible for your unhappiness but you… You always get to choose the metric by which to measure your experiences.”(p. 99)
This isn’t easy, of course. Sometimes it’s cathartic to indulge in a bad mood or lash out when someone is rude. But negativity ripples outward, and the temporary satisfaction rarely outweighs the long-term drain. Choosing differently - choosing better - is a practice, and it becomes easier the more we do it.
Manson illustrates the power of choice through two scenarios: • being forced at gunpoint to run a marathon • choosing to train for and run a marathon voluntarily
The act is identical; the meaning is completely different.
Often the difference between suffering and empowerment is whether we feel ownership over our struggle.
As in Buddhism, Manson gestures toward the idea that each of us contains a seed of potential “Buddha to be.” We will never reach perfection, but we can always move closer to truth, compassion, and clarity. That striving, not the endpoint, is the point.
My favourite chapter, the final chapter, is one of the most powerful pieces of the entire book. Stark, unflinching, and oddly liberating. Manson closes with a meditation on mortality, arguing that fully accepting our inevitable death is the only foundation on which a meaningful life can be built.
He frames death as the ultimate measuring stick, the “light by which the shadow of all of life’s meaning is measured.” If life were infinite, none of our choices would carry weight; everything would be equally trivial. It is precisely because our time is limited that our decisions matter.
Manson also introduces the idea of “immortality projects”… the values, beliefs, and/or legacies we construct in an attempt to outlive our physical selves. These projects are uniquely human; aware of our own mortality, we cling to identities that we hope will echo beyond our death. But as he points out, chasing legacy can easily become a trap, leading us to pursue superficial achievements instead of genuinely meaningful values.
“Our culture today confuses great attention and great success, assuming them to be the same thing. But they are not.” (p. 201)
The chapter’s core truth is blunt and uncomfortable: one day, you and everyone you love will die, and very little of what you do will matter beyond a small circle of people for a brief moment in time. “You too are going to die, and that’s because you were too fortunate enough to have lived.” Rather than sending the reader into despair, Manson uses this reality as a kind of philosophical clarifying agent. When we stop running from death, we’re freer to choose our values intentionally, without pretending we’re building something eternal.
“And the primary reason [is] this: there is nothing to be afraid of. Ever. And reminding myself of my own death repeatedly over the years – whether it be through meditation, through reading philosophy, or through doing crazy shit like standing on a cliff in South Africa – is the only thing that has helped me hold this realisation front and centre in my mind. This acceptance of my death, this understanding of my own fragility, has made everything easier… The more I peer into the darkness, the brighter life gets, the quieter the world becomes, and the less unconscious resistance I feel to, well, anything.” (p. 203)
The point I took from this chapter is this: caring about something larger than yourself - something that won’t necessarily make you world-famous, but will make you useful, compassionate, grounded, kind - is the closest thing to meaning we get. Mortality becomes a call to action: choose what you give a fuck about wisely, take responsibility for your choices, and focus on depth, not legacy.
For me, this chapter tied the entire book together. It strips away the cheerful platitudes that clutter so much of modern self-help and replaces them with something raw but freeing. It forces a recalibration of priorities, a reminder that life’s fragility is not a reason to panic, but a reason to live more intentionally.
If you feel intrigued by this review or if your mood brightened even a little while reading it then consider picking up a copy of this book from your library or local bookshop.
I’ll close with a final quote that I adore, what Alan Watts calls “the backwards law”:
“The desire for more positive experience is itself a negative experience. And, paradoxically, the acceptance of one’s negative experience is itself a positive experience.” (p. 9)
Chew on that for a little while…
Thanks for reading!
Disclaimer Blogger: /@actaylor
Photographs: unless otherwise noted, all images were taken by me with an iPhone 8
