Values

Why you might care about far too much

A book that sells on its title and is really about values. A walk through the ideas in Mark Manson's The Subtle Art of Not Giving a F*ck – choosing what to care about, responsibility versus fault, and how much of this is stoicism in new language.

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What this covers

  1. Choosing what to care about, since you cannot care about everything
  2. Why chasing the positive makes us unhappy
  3. You are not special, and that is a relief
  4. Problems do not disappear – they get swapped for better problems
  5. Good and bad values
  6. Responsibility is not the same as fault
  7. Death as a measure

What this covers (cont.)

  1. What the book borrows, and what it simplifies

You cannot care about everything

The core idea is a budget. You have a limited supply of care, time and attention, and most of what we spend it on – what other people think, small things that go wrong, whether we are ahead of or behind the neighbours – does not deserve it.

The budget, and where it actually goes

Everything that could occupy youNews, other people's opinions, queues, lost arguments, comment sections, comparisons.
What you actually spend it onUsually whatever shouts loudest, not whatever matters most.
What deserves itA few things. Manson thinks the list is shorter than most people assume.
The point is not indifference. It is that attention is zero-sum: caring less about something is not an attitude, it is a precondition for caring more about something else. Whoever does not choose has the choice made for them.

The backwards law

  1. 1You want to feel betterA perfectly reasonable starting point.
  2. 2You pursue itReading, trying, striving.
  3. 3The pursuit reminds you of the lackStriving for something presupposes that you do not have it.
  4. 4You feel worseNot because of what is missing, but from measuring yourself against it.
  5. 5You try harderAnd the circle tightens.
The harder you try to be happy, the less happy you become. That is not an argument for giving up – it is an argument for moving your attention from the state you want to the thing you actually do.

Problems are exchanged, not removed

There is no such thing as a life without problems, and the solution to one problem is usually a new one. That is not pessimism – it is a recommendation to choose your problems carefully.

The question that actually moves something

  1. The usual question"What do I want?" Everybody wants the fitness, the career, the relationship. The answer distinguishes nobody from anybody.
  2. Manson's question"What pain am I willing to sustain?" Who is willing to train when it is boring, work when nobody is watching, have the difficult conversations?
  3. That answer is what decidesYou do not get what you wish for. You get what you are willing to struggle for.
Happiness, Manson argues, comes from solving problems you actually want to solve. That makes the choice of problems more important than the choice of goals – and it is a far more usable test when you are standing between two paths.

Responsibility and fault

Perhaps the most useful distinction in the book, and the easiest one to get wrong.

Two words that are constantly confused

Fault

Is about the past

  • Who caused it
  • Can lie with someone else
  • Can be entirely outside your control
  • Changes nothing going forward

Responsibility

Is about what you do next

  • How you relate to it now
  • Always lies with you
  • Not because it is fair, but because nobody else can take it
  • Is the only thing that can change anything
That something painful happened to you may well not be your fault. But how you relate to it now is your responsibility. The distinction is worth holding on to precisely because it is unfair: it does not ask you to absolve anyone, it only asks you to stop waiting for them to put it right.

Good and bad values

Manson proposes a test, and it is simple enough to actually use.

Manson's test for a value

Good values

You control them yourself

  • Honesty
  • Curiosity
  • Standing for something
  • Reality-based
  • Socially constructive

Bad values

They depend on other people

  • Popularity
  • Always being right
  • Being liked by everyone
  • Superstitious or destructive
  • Dependent on something outside you
Much unhappiness, Manson argues, is measuring yourself against something in the right-hand column – where you do not have your hands on the wheel anyway. The test is not whether the value sounds admirable, but whether you can succeed at it without somebody else having to do something specific.

Death as the yardstick

The book's final chapter is also its most serious, and the tone shifts completely.

Most of what you worry about means nothing seen from the end.

Why Manson includes it: he uses death as the ultimate test of what deserves your attention – a filter that is brutal, but effective.
Where it comes from: he credits Ernest Becker, who argued that much human behaviour is an attempt to leave behind something that outlasts the body.
What it does to the rest of the book: without this chapter it is a collection of advice. With it, it becomes an argument about what a life is for.

The criticism

Most of this is old, and it is worth knowing where it comes from.

Where the ideas actually originate

The idea in the bookWhere it comes from
Separate what you control from what you do notStoicism
Suffering comes from desireBuddhism
Death gives life meaningErnest Becker, whom Manson cites himself
The book partly admits this, but sells it as new. That is not in itself an objection to the content – old ideas can be right – but it is worth knowing that originals exist, and that they are more precise.

Who the book is for

Worth reading

Has never met the ideas

  • Would never have picked up a book on stoicism
  • Needs something to be read, not to be precise
  • Recognises themselves in caring about too much

Skip it

Has met them before

  • Has read Epictetus, Seneca or Marcus Aurelius
  • Wants the original rather than the adaptation
  • Will be more irritated than helped by the tone
What holds up is the accessibility. For anyone who has never met these ideas, this is a door that actually gets opened – and an idea you read is worth more than a precise idea you never open.

Key points

  • The point is not to stop caring. It is to care about fewer things, deliberately.
  • A life without problems does not exist. The question is which problems you want.
  • It may not be your fault that something happened. It is still your responsibility what you do now.
  • Good values are things you control yourself. Bad values depend on other people.

Key points (cont.)

  • The ideas are old. The packaging is what is new.

Questions this answers

  • What does it mean not to care?
  • Why does positive thinking make us unhappy according to Manson?
  • What is the difference between responsibility and fault?
  • What are good values?
  • Is the book just stoicism with swearing?

Sources

  • Mark Manson – The Subtle Art of Not Giving a F*ck (2016)

Spørretimen

Read the whole thing at

www.sporretimen.no/en/episodes/subtle-art/