Mark Manson

From the author of the international mega-bestseller The Subtle Art of Not Giving A F*ck comes a counterintuitive guide to the problems of hope. We live in an interesting time. Materially, everything is the best it’s ever been—we are freer, healthier and wealthier than any people in human history. Yet, somehow everything seems to be irreparably and horribly f*cked—the planet is warming, governments are failing, economies are collapsing, and everyone is perpetually offended on Twitter. At this moment in history, when we have access to technology, education and communication our ancestors couldn’t even dream of, so many of us come back to an overriding feeling of hopelessness. What’s going on? If anyone can put a name to our current malaise and help fix it, it’s Mark Manson. In 2016, Manson published The Subtle Art of Not Giving A F*ck, a book that brilliantly gave shape to the ever-present, low-level hum of anxiety that permeates modern living. He showed us that technology had made it too easy to care about the wrong things, that our culture had convinced us that the world owed us something when it didn’t—and worst of all, that our modern and maddening urge to always find happiness only served to make us unhappier. Instead, the “subtle art” of that title turned out to be a bold challenge: to choose your struggle; to narrow and focus and find the pain you want to sustain. The result was a book that became an international phenomenon, selling millions of copies worldwide while becoming the #1 bestseller in 13 different countries. Now, in Everthing Is F*cked, Manson turns his gaze from the inevitable flaws within each individual self to the endless calamities taking place in the world around us. Drawing from the pool of psychological research on these topics, as well as the timeless wisdom of philosophers such as Plato, Nietzsche, and Tom Waits, he dissects religion and politics and the uncomfortable ways they have come to resemble one another. He looks at our relationships with money, entertainment and the internet, and how too much of a good thing can psychologically eat us alive. He openly defies our definitions of faith, happiness, freedom—and even of hope itself. With his usual mix of erudition and where-the-f*ck-did-that-come-from humor, Manson takes us by the collar and challenges us to be more honest with ourselves and connected with the world in ways we probably haven’t considered before. It’s another counterintuitive romp through the pain in our hearts and the stress of our soul. One of the great modern writers has produced another book that will set the agenda for years to come.

A Book About Hope

Everything Is F*cked

Roxan

But here's the funny thing about value hierarchies: when they change, you don't actually lose anything. It's not that my friend decided to start giving up the parties for her career, it's that the parties stopped being fun. That's because fun" is the product of our value hierarchies. 

When we stop valuing something, it ceases to be fun or interesting to us. Therefore, there is no sense of loss, no sense of missing out when we stop doing it. On the contrary, we look back and wonder how we ever spent so much time caring about such a silly, trivial thing, why we wasted so much energy on issues and causes that didn't matter. These pangs of regret or em- barrassment are good; they signify growth. They are the product of our achieving our hopes.

EVERYTHING would grieve the loss ofa loved one, the loss ofa iob community, a spiritual belief, ora friendship. These are ing, fundamental parts of you. And when they are torn of a job, a house, a 68 I efin. they are torn way from you rn away, leavin you, the hope they offered your life is also torn away, leavine exposed, once again, to the Uncomfortable Truth. aulty examine the nd them. he the There are two ways to heal yourself-that is, to replace old, fa. s. The first is to ree values with better, healthier values. The first is to reexamin experiences of your past and rewrite the narratives around them he punch me because I'm an awtul person; or is Wait, did awful person? onb t Reexamining the narratives of our lives allows us to have do-over, to decide: you know, maybe I wasn't such a great boat captain after all, and that's fine. Often, with time, we realize that what we used to believe was important about the world actually isn't. Other times, we extend the story to get a clearer view of our self-worth-oh, she left me because some asshole left her and she felt ashamed and unworthy around intimacy-and suddenly, that breakup is easier to swallow. a sd oiigasG abaient Tu The other way to change your values is to begin writing the narratives of your future self, to envision what life would be like if you had certain values or possessed a certain identity. By visu- alizing the future we want for ourselves, we allow our Feeling Brain to try on those values for size, to see what they feel like be- fore we make the final purchase. Eventually, once we've done this enough, the Feeling Brain becomes accustomed to the new values and starts to believe them. This sort of "future projection" is usually taught in the worst of ways. "Imagine you're fucking rich and own a fleet of yachts! Then it will come true!"8 Sadly, that kind of visualization is not replacing

Dont forget to envision the hard parts of ehat you will become

oalthy value (materialism) with a better one. It's just mastur- hating to your current value. Real change would entail fantasizing what not wanting yachts in the first place would feel like. Fruitful visualization should be a little bit uncomfortable. It should challenge you and be difficult to fathom. If it's not, then it means that nothing is changing. odi otat qute d The Feeling Brain doesn't know the difference between past, Dresent, and future; that's the Thinking Brain's domain39 And one of the strategies our Thinking Brain uses to nudge the Feel- ing Brain into the correct lane of life is asking "what if" ques- tions: What if you hated boats and instead spent your time helping disabled kids? What if you didn't have to prove anything to the people in your life for them to like you? What if people's unavail- ability has more to do with them than it does with you?

Values cannot be changed through reason, only through experiences 

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