The Subtle Art of Not Giving a F*ck
Mark Manson
Contributed by Micheal Celestin
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Chapter 6
Summary

Most of the self-improvement books focus on convincing us that the heavenly state of peace will only be achieved after we discover ourselves. Despite all of this mediatized information, Manson doesn't agree with that statement. He dedicated an entire chapter to showing us the beauty of not knowing who we are.  First, we need to look at our mind as a jumble of inaccuracies. All these uncertainties are the root for development. We are rarely right, on most of the occasions we are wrong. Our task shouldn't be to find the right answer but to be less wrong than we were in the past. Any experience in our life can bring benefit or can hurt us. We never know what will be the consequences until the action is in the past. Because of that assuming that our morals and values are perfect will only breed a feeling of entitlement which ultimately will make us avoid responsibilities. Accepting the idea that we are wrong will force us changing the way we see our values and also how we prioritize our experiences. In the author's opinion there are three questions we should address to ourselves in order to not fall into the trap of self-consumption: can our ideas be wrong, what does it mean if the idea is wrong and if being wrong would make the problem better or worse. In a brief way, what we need to keep in mind is that uncertainty is not the evil we are trying to hide from and that we should try to embrace it in order to open the doors to a different view of the world.

Analysis

Mark Manson continues sharing past experiences with the readers in order to create a better understanding of what he is trying to teach us.  The entire chapter is full of comparison such as between believing and not believing what our mind dictates and between being right and being wrong.  He starts this chapter by stating again that for years people thought that the world is flat or that the sun revolves around the earth. Only after they managed to accept the idea that they are wrong new opportunities arose. The same thing applies to our personal lives. We need to embrace the fact that our mind tends to protect its opinions because they are the only ones we experienced and the only ones we are able to understand.  In a beautiful manner, he tells us that we are the architects of our own beliefs and once we are able to control this hidden skill which we all possess we will be able to have a better understanding of what really matters and what our morals and values should be. He ends the chapter by offering to us a few solutions to how we can start being less certain about our beliefs. In his opinion, the key to solving this dilemma is to question and doubting everything we think or believe. Even though it sounds effortless to accomplish this task, we would be amazed by how much energy and how much practice it actually required in order to polish it up.

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