My name is Mark Manson. I am the author of the  subtle art of not giving a fuck, as well as   some other works. I'm a YouTuber, podcaster, and  my work focuses primarily on the importance of   values. This is Big Think, and today I'm going to  be talking about how to grow into an emotionally   mature adult. How to develop a healthy sense of  hope. How to improve your life by changing your   values. And how to find success through failure.  Chapter 1. Becoming an emotionally healthy adult.   One of my spicier arguments is that I think  happiness is greatly overrated in today's   age. I think people focus on it way too much.  I think they're focused on it backfires pretty   consistently. But worst of all, I think people  have started confusing comforts and highs for   the same thing as happiness. It's interesting if  you look at the ancient world, Aristotle actually   argued that there are two versions of happiness.  There's hedonia, which is kind of pleasure,   comforts, short-term satisfactions, and then  there's eudaimonia, which is kind of a deeper,   purpose-driven. This is a meaningful way to  live my life kind of feeling. And I think the   modern age has been very optimized to promote as  much hedonia as possible. Everything is designed   to make us as comfortable as possible, to  give us quick dopamine hits all the time,   to make us feel good all the time, and to promise  us really simple superficial happiness all the   time. But the problem is that what actually drives  life satisfaction is that sense of eudaimonia,   that sense of my life was worth living. I  have zero regrets. Everything I've suffered   or struggled through was worth the trouble.

One  thing to keep in mind in all this is an idea that   comes from Alan Watts that I call the backwards  law. And basically the backwards law is that the   more you chase a positive experience, that chasing  in and of itself is a negative experience. And the   more you accept a negative experience, the more  that acceptance itself is a positive experience.   So you see this show up in all sorts of different  areas of life, different ways. The more you try to   impress people, the less impressive you're always  going to feel. The more beautiful that you want to   be, the uglier you will constantly see yourself.  The more money you want to make, the more you will   feel too poor and inadequate, like you don't  have enough stuff. The more love you feel like   you need, the more lonely and isolated you will  feel. The more spiritually enlightened you want   to become, the more self-centered and narcissistic  you'll likely end up being. The more you try to   be happy all the time, the more easily you'll be  upset. Whereas if you just accept that sometimes   life is hard and shit goes wrong, the more happy  and easy going you'll become. So the significance   of the backwards law is important because so  much of what we're exposed to on a day-to-day   basis is kind of selling us these benefits  of self-perception. Hey, look at this by this   product. You'll become more beautiful. You'll  become happier. This will solve your confidence   issues. Hey, we can fix your health in 30 days or  your money back. All of these things, they sound   very enticing, but what you discover as you start  to go down that road is that you actually increase   the likelihood of your negative experiences  because you are constantly chasing that   positive.

So what I tell people is I say, instead  of asking yourself what's going to make me happy,   ask yourself, what am I willing to struggle  for? What are the problems I actually kind   of like having in my life? Sometimes when I give  talks, I ask the audience, what kind of masochist   are you? What's like the pain that you secretly  enjoy that most other people don't? Because it's   in that pain, that special relationship that  you have with that struggle, that's actually   probably where most of the meaning and purpose in  your life is going to be found. It's going to be   found in the struggles that you kind of relish  having and in the challenges that you are most   proud of overcoming. And this comes back to that  backwards law and that when you're constantly   chasing the positive experiences, you end up  on this experience of like a treadmill and that   every day and every moment you're looking for the  next hit, the next high to keep you going. Whereas   when you find the negative experiences that you're  happy to accept, that you're willing to embrace,   that embracing of that negative experience is  actually what's going to generate a much longer   and sustained positive experience. Because this is  the sneaky truth that most people don't understand   is that happiness is not something that you pursue  and achieve in and of itself. It's the natural   side effect of finding something more meaningful  and purposeful in your life. If you find something   that feels important, that's worth giving a  fuck about, the happiness will happen on its own   anyway.

I think another common affliction today is  this idea that we are each special and unique. And   because we're so special and unique, we deserve  special treatment, special results, a special   place in the world. Ultimately, what this breeds  is a sense of entitlement. It's a sense that we   deserve certain outcomes without having to put  in the effort or the work. And I think this comes   from two different places. I think one was very  well-intentioned, which was our parents raised us,   telling us that we were special and amazing and  unique, and that we had unique gifts to share   with the world. And they simply did this because  the self-esteem research at the time said this is   what you're supposed to tell your kids. Of course,  nowadays, we realize that that's not the case.   When you raise children telling them that they're  special and they deserve to have everything,   you're not raising a human with high self-esteem,  you're raising a little narcissist who thinks that   they deserve all the benefits without any of the  costs. Now, what most people don't realize is that   there's two flavors of narcissism. Now, when  most people think of an entitled narcissist,   they think of what's known as a grandiose  narcissist, which is the person who believes that   they are bigger and better than everyone else,  that they are amazing and unique. They're amazing   and perfect and the best and they deserve special  treatment because they're so superior. But there's   a flavor of narcissism that most people haven't  heard of, and that's the vulnerable narcissist.   The vulnerable narcissist defines themselves as  a special, unique victim. Everything has gone   wrong. Everything is unfair. They've been treated  uniquely poorly. And because of all those things,   they deserve special treatment. And what's  interesting is that grandiose narcissists and   vulnerable narcissists, while having completely  opposite attitudes and justifications for their   selfish behavior, the result is exactly the  same. Everyone should pay attention to me.   Everybody should stop everything they're doing  for me. Everybody should give everything I want   to me. I think the second cause is just the  nature of how the internet has evolved itself,   is that everything is personalized. It's catered  exactly for you. You get online and everything   in your news feed is perfectly curated for your  interests and the things that you care about and   the things that you want to know about. All of  the ads are directed at how special you are and   how much you deserve this outcome and how if  you just buy this product, then you are going   to live up to it. And we're going to live up to  all the potential that you always knew that you   had. I think this messaging has become the water  that we all swim in and it's terrible for our   mental and emotional health.

Most conventional  self-help techniques are really just focused on   these sugar highs of making you feel a little bit  happier for a moment or making you feel special   for a moment. The idea that you should stand and  look in the mirror and tell yourself that you're   beautiful or you're smart or that people are  going to like you. Ultimately, the research shows   that that's not that effective. In fact, what the  research finds is that a lot of these techniques,   like visualizations and affirmations and gratitude  practices, they work better for the people who   don't need them. So if you already feel good about  yourself, then yeah, standing in the mirror is   going to make you feel a little bit better. But  if you feel like crap about yourself, the only   thing that standing in the mirror reciting lines  to yourself reminds you of is that you feel crap   about yourself, that you are the type of person  who needs to stand in front of a mirror and say   affirmations to yourself. It just makes you feel  more pathetic. So a lot of these techniques,   they are sold and marketed as solutions to feeling  happy and fulfilled and satisfied every day of   your life. But really, they're just amplifying  what's already there.

So when I was in my 20s,  I developed a really intense fascination with  developmental psychology, like most 20 year olds.   And I started reading a lot of really brilliant  and famous researchers from Jean Piaget to   Lawrence Kohlberg to Robert Keegan, Erik Erikson.  And they all have these amazing frameworks of just   how people develop throughout their lives. And  the early developmental psychologists like Piaget,   they began an early childhood and they kind of  looked at how an infant develops basic logical   reasoning and rational skills and can identify  the difference between self and other. And then   other psychologists came along later and they  continued by looking at how adults develop and how   different moral frameworks arise at different  parts of our lives and how there are different   tensions at different ages that really define  how we see the world. So I just kind of became   obsessed with this with a bunch of these theories  and frameworks and I eventually kind of simplified   everything into a framework that I think really  ties together a lot of what we're trying to   achieve in our lives. So I broke it down into  three really simple categories. There's childhood,   there's adolescence, and there's adulthood.  Each is defined by something very simple,   but the progress from one stage to the next is  not necessarily guaranteed. So the child sees the   world in the simplest of ways, which is, I want  a thing, do I get the thing or not? You know,   the child wants ice cream, it reaches for the  ice cream. The child wants a cookie, it reaches   for the cookie. All it understands is, I want  this thing and I either get it or I don't get   it. If I get it, I'm happy, if I don't get it, I'm  unhappy. After being upset enough times, I start   developing a theory of the world that explains why  I don't always get a cookie when I want it. Well,   it turns out mom gets to decide whether I get  a cookie or not. And it also turns out that mom   has a different experience and perspective than I  do. Oh, that's actually really interesting. There   are other people who have their own perspectives  of how the world works and they have their own   desires. They want their own cookies or they  don't want their own cookies. And sure enough,   when you look at a lot of studies, young children,  they don't have a concept of self yet. They don't   understand that other people have different  perspectives than themselves. They're not   able to empathize like older humans are able  to empathize. They're not able to understand   social status or social signaling or cultural  standards or anything like that. And so once   the child develops these theories of mind, they  enter the adolescent stage, which I kind of think   of as like the transactional stage of life. If you  think back to high school, essentially what high   school is is everybody's trying to barter with  each other for social status, right? It's like,   oh, if I wear this jacket, maybe they'll  think I'm cool. If I wear the right shoes,   then maybe I'll fit in and they'll be friends  with me. If I say the funny thing in class,   then maybe the cute girl will pay attention to me.  Everything is conditional. It's tit for tat. If   I do this, it will get that reaction out of that  person. And this is very logical, right? Because   once you understand it, like, okay, every other  person has their own perspective, then what is   the behavior that I need to do that is most likely  going to make them allow me have my cookie? Now,   this carries over into the real world. In fact,  there's a lot of relationships in the real world   that function this way that are very conditional.  Like, you know, the coffee shop I went to this   morning, I have a conditional relationship with  the barista. I don't really care who they are or   where they went to school or where they grew up.  I just want them to give me my coffee and give   it to me quick, right? And that's fine. That's  fine in very small, marginal situations. So what   you start noticing as you go through life is that  this constant conditional interaction with people,   it's exhausting. It feels inauthentic. It feels  like you're performing all the time. And even when   you get people to like you, it's very unsatisfied.  And so what you eventually start to realize is   that the only way to truly be happy with other  people and be happy in the world is to behave   unconditionally, is to find something in your life  that matters so much to you. That you're willing   to be disliked for it. That you're willing to  suffer disapproval. You're willing to not get the   cookie because you found something more important  than the cookie. And this is what adulthood is.   It's finding the things that really you're willing  to plant your flag in and say, "This is who I am,   take it or leave it. And if I'm not for you,  that's totally fine. I get it. Live and let live."   But I'm going to go look for the people that are  right for me and that share in these values.

Now  the tricky thing is that I think a very large  percentage of people get stuck in that adolescent   mindset, that they're stuck bartering with the  world performing for approval all the time. And   I think a big reason for that is that the modern  world is more transactional. It is more you're   exposed to so many different people in so many  different ways and there's so many different   opportunities that you feel like you should be  performing all the time to get what you want.   And so if you never watch that performance fail  enough times to start living virtuously, then   you'll never cross over into that adult framework  of living. And if you don't cross over into that,   if you don't find the thing that you're willing  to be disliked for, then you're never going to   have a stable, happy relationship in the world.  If we zoom out, like philosophically speaking,   the reason we want to get to adulthood is because  living that way makes us anti-fragile. Like the   adolescent mindset, the childlike mindset, they're  very fragile. They're easily disrupted. If things   don't go your way, if you don't say the right  thing, if you don't do the right thing at the   right moment, everything falls apart. Whereas with  the adult mindset, if you just have something that   you stand for and you're willing to struggle  for and you're willing to suffer through being   disapproved for, any hardship or setback actually  makes you stronger. It actually shows you,   it helps you adapt to new circumstances. It helps  you find new ways and reasons to work towards the   thing that you believe in or stand for the thing  that you care about. And the funniest thing about   all this too is, you know, I went down this  like deep modern psychological rabbit hole.   And when I got to the bottom of it, I just  found Aristotle. This is basic ancient Greek,   Aristotelian philosophy 101. His whole argument  was, third basic virtues. These are things that   you can practice in each and every single moment  that you can practice when people love you and   when they hate you, that you can practice  when you're broke and when you're rich,   that you can practice when things are going well  and when things are a total fucking dumpster fire.   They're in your control at any given time.  And they are always socially constructive,   regardless of where the political fault lines are  that week or that month. And if you prioritize   them, if you make them your highest values, you  can pursue them in every moment. You can live   unconditionally. You can be anti-fragile. You  can gain from failure and rejection. You don't   have to perform for others. You don't have to  chase status or accolades. You don't have to   prove anything to anybody. It's this basic virtue  ethic that has been sitting in front of us for the   entirety of Western history. And I found myself  staring at it in the face in between scrolling on   TikTok and Instagram being like, "Oh, this  was the answer all along." And so I think   ultimately it's we are all developing towards an  adulthood that is just reflective of what some of   the wisest minds in history called out all along.  That just pursue virtue, just value the timeless   things that are good for everybody. And don't  get lost in the hedonic treadmill of chasing more   likes or chasing a couple more bucks or getting  the next car or getting the next date. Because   that's temporary. It's just a high and it's just  going to create more suffering than it alleviates.

So I guess we're back at the start. Chapter two,  developing a healthy sense of hope. So there's   something I call the uncomfortable truth of life  and it's not fun to hear or think about. And that   is basically that you and everyone you know are  going to die and that basically nothing we do is   going to matter in the grand scheme of things.  That in the infinite expanse of the universe,   we're just insignificant microscopic dust milling  about. And none of this matters. And while that   sounds very dark and fatalistic, I do think there  is an optimistic view of that and that we get to   create and construct meaning for ourselves. We  get to decide what matters in our lives and they   sustain us through hardship and challenges  and when things go wrong. Our hope keeps us   getting up in the morning and moving forward.  But there's a dangerous side of hope as well,   which most people don't think about. And that  is that we defend our hopes often violently   that we cling to our hope because it sustains  us so much emotionally. And so if we hope for   the wrong things or if we hope for things that are  unrealistic, we can end up painting ourselves into   a corner where living a fulfilling life is simply  impossible.

So I break our hopes down into three  component parts and these component parts are   largely based on self-determination theory, which  is the predominant framework for understanding  motivation and psychology. So the first one is,   do you have a sense of autonomy? Do you feel like  you control your future? Do you feel like you're   able to make decisions for yourself? The second  component is, do you have something that you feel   like is more important than yourself? Is there  something in your life that you're willing to   struggle for or sacrifice for? And then the third  is, do you feel like you belong to something? Do   you feel like you have a tribe of people around  you who share your values or support your values   as you pursue them? And if you have all three  of those things, then you can develop a healthy   sense of hope. But as we'll see, each one of  those three things gets very complicated. So   the first complication comes around autonomy  and self-control. And that is essentially that   self-control is an illusion. What psychology shows  us is that we are fundamentally irrational actors.   We are very emotionally driven and then we  rationalize our emotional decisions after   the fact. And so a lot of what we think about in  terms of self-discipline, habits, goal-setting,   self-control, these are largely dictated by  our emotional impulses. And so paradoxically,   the way to develop more control and discipline  in your life is not to implement rigid structures   and just brute force everything with willpower.  It's actually to develop a better relationship   with your own emotions. Because once you get in  touch with your emotional impulses, you can start   directing them in more productive directions.  Plato characterized it as a chariot and a horse.   And the rational thinking part of ourselves is  the chariot with the whip and the reins trying to   control the horses of our instincts and making  sure that we go where we actually want to go.

So imagine that we have two brains. We have the  thinking brain and the feeling brain. And imagine   that our consciousness is a car. Most of us assume  that the thinking brain is driving the car. And   the feeling brain is in the passenger seat being  this noisy child screaming, looking at stuff out   the window, getting excited or upset about various  things. But the truth is that it's actually the   opposite. The feeling brain is driving the  car and the thinking brain is sitting in the   passenger seat and trying to act as the navigator.  So the job of the thinking brain is to effectively   communicate to the feeling brain to kind of almost  like a dog tame the feeling brain into going where   it should go. Because if you don't, then the  feeling brain is just going to drive over the   median and the oncoming traffic, follow whatever  shiny object that it wants to chase after. So   the struggle and tension between our thoughts and  emotions is ever-present. And really what it boils   down to is developing a healthier relationship  with ourselves, an understanding of our emotions   without suppressing them, a comfort experiencing  various emotions without overindulging them,   and learning how to direct some of our  impulses and cravings without overdoing them.

In my book, Everything is Fock the Book about  Hope, I write a full chapter about Isaac Newton   as kind of an allegory of understanding how  our emotions and our identity interact with   each other. In that story, I create Newton's  three laws of emotion. The first one is that   for every action, there will be an equal and  opposite emotional reaction. So every action   that we take in our life or every experience that  we have in our life, whatever its impact on our   identity, how we identify ourselves, there will  be an emotional reaction that is proportional   to how we perceive that experience to interact  with our identity. So let's say I have a large   identity as an author and I run into somebody on  the street who says like, "Wow, you're a terrible   hand model." Well, I don't identify as a hand  model. It's not a core part of how I see myself.   So I'll probably just kind of laugh and be like,  "Wow, that's really weird." But if I run into   somebody on the street who stops me and says, "Oh,  wow, I read your books. You're a terrible author."   Since that's such a core part of my identity,  I will probably have a proportional emotional   response to that experience. And I'll probably  get very upset, embarrassed, confused, angry,   whatever it is. But the emotional response will  be directly proportional to how much the action   is taking effect on my identity. Newton's second  law of emotion is that your identity is the sum of   all of your emotional experiences throughout your  life. So if you have consistently felt bad around   yourself, you will start to develop an identity  of somebody who is bad. Somebody who just fails   at things is incapable of doing things nobody's  ever going to like you and so on. Whereas if you   experience a large sum of positive experiences  throughout your life, you'll develop an identity   around those positive experiences. And ultimately,  this is why we adopt certain identities. I adopt   an identity as an author because I have intense  positive experiences trying to be an author. I   adopted an identity as bad at cooking because I  have pretty much nothing but negative experiences   every time I try to cook. And a Newton's third law  is that there's an inertia to your identity, that   your identity will continue to be your identity  until some force acts against it and redirects it.   And so when you're trying to change who you are  or try to change your understanding of yourself,   the only way you can actually do that is to go  have contrary experiences, go out into the world   and do things that act against the identity  that prove your self-definition wrong in some   way.

Now the lesson to take on all of this is that  ultimately you want to identify with things that   are beyond yourself. As long as your emotional  stability is based on how you perceive yourself   and others perceive you, it's going to fluctuate  wildly and you're going to lose control of your   own actions. But if you have something outside of  yourself that you identify with, that you really   give yourself to, then that grants you a certain  amount of stability in your life because it's no   longer about you. It's like if you give your life  to raising a family, then it's you no longer care   if people criticize you for being a bad author  or a bad cook. It doesn't matter to you. It's   this more important thing outside of yourself  that you can tether your hopes to that provides   more emotional stability and a greater amount of  self-control.

And finally, the third complication  comes around community. So when we find something  outside of ourselves, we develop like an emotional   gravity and that we attract people with similar  values as our own. And we repel people with   opposite values of our own. So when you start  to value something outside of yourself, you   will naturally start to coalesce with other people  around similar shared values. And eventually you   develop a community. Now communities are amazing.  They're great. They're absolutely fundamental   to our mental health. We're very much wired as  social creatures. Our relationships are probably   the highest correlated thing to our happiness  and well-being out of everything that we've ever   measured in psychology. So developing a community  around shared values is amazing. It's incredible.   The problem is that humans have a tendency to  not just create a benign community and celebrate   something. Once they've got the community,  they like to play politics. They like to start   thinking, "You know what? Our little community is  better than that community." I think our community   should have more access than that community. I  think our community should maybe be in charge of   that community over there. And this is where hope  can turn dangerous because if your hopes hinge   completely on your community having more access  or power or resources over that community, then   your hope essentially hinges on gaining power and  gaining control over others. It starts to hinge on   something that is by definition exclusionary and  antagonistic to the rest of the world around it.   And I think an unintended side effect of the  modern world by making it so accessible and   possible for people to form communities around  shared values, we've unintentionally amplified the   ability to create strife and conflict around each  other's hopes. All of these perspectives and ideas   that I've been talking about, they're not fun.  They're not exciting, but they're good for you,   and they make you a better functioning human  being. So in this sense, I think of them like   psychological vegetables. Nobody likes eating  vegetables, but we all know we need to eat our   vegetables. And vegetables are boring. They're  everywhere. They're ever present. They're in   every meal, but they're always the least exciting  part of the meal. But the thing is, is that when   we have a diet that's predominantly vegetables, we  end up becoming healthier, we're more energized,   we have more ability to focus, we have more  ability to act in the world. It's ultimately   what's good for us. Whereas chasing the highs of  happiness, believing that everybody should like   you all the time, believing that you're special  and you deserve special treatment, these are like   the sugar and desserts of our psychological  diet. They feel good for a brief moment,   but they always come with a hangover, and they  always make us deeply unhealthy in the long run.

Chapter three, how to fix your life by changing  your values. I think a lot of people discount my   work simply because of the profanity. They think  that it's juvenile, that I'm kind of pandering to   my audience by making them giggle. And I think  what a lot of people miss about my work is that   the whole not giving a fuck thing, it's really  just a bit of a Trojan horse for discussion of   values. Because if you think about it, we all have  to care about something, we all have to give a   fuck about something. The question is, what are we  choosing to give a fuck about? And what we choose   to give a fuck about, what we give our attention  to or what we choose to focus on. Ultimately,   that is a reflection of our values, of what we  are prioritizing in our lives, what we find most   important to ourselves, and that prioritization  that we do internally and probably unconsciously   ultimately has an effect on everything that we do.  It becomes kind of the filter or the lens in which   we see everything. And so I think the big blind  spot in the self-help industry, it's not how do I   become happier, or how do I become richer, or how  do I become more successful. It's why do you want   to be happier, why do you want to be richer,  why do you want to be more successful? Like,   what is success, how are you measuring that? How  are you defining that? Because if you're defining   it in a really terrible way, if the underlying  value is just bad, then achieving that success is   actually going to be a bad thing for you. You can  waste years of your life chasing this thing that's   ultimately not going to make anything better.

So this raises the question, what should you  give a fuck about? What is a good value? What's   a good thing to focus on? Well, I think there's  a few principles that can help us figure this   out. So the first principle is, are you giving  a fuck about something that is immediate and   controllable? Is it something that you can control   within your own environment? So for example, the  reason people pleasing is a terrible value is not   because it's bad to be liked. We all want to be  liked. The problem is that you can't control what   other people feel. And in fact, when you try to  control what other people feel, that makes you an   asshole. You're interfering with their agency.  But when you focus on what you can control,   your own behavior, your own honesty, your own  vulnerability, that will make your relationship   stronger. But it won't necessarily make you liked  by everyone. The second principle of having good   values is valuing something that is reality-based.  Something that you can verify and know to a   certain degree is true. We tend to get very caught  up in fantasies and invent a lot of ideas in our   head about what's true about the world, the way  other people should be, different beliefs about  how society should work. And it's unavoidable  that we're going to be wrong about something some   of the time, but we should always be working  towards some reality-based version of truth.   Simply because believing in illusions ultimately  is going to make us suffer. Being attached to the   illusion that everybody should say hi to me  on Saturday morning is just going to piss me   off every Saturday, because it's unrealistic and  it's based in this fantasy version of the world.   This principle is particularly tricky because  it requires us to constantly evaluate the ways   that we might be wrong. The ways that we might  be believing in a fantasy or have some false   assumption about ourselves or other people or the  way that the world should work. And then the third   principle for having good values is that it should  be socially constructive. Now this sounds very   obvious and simple, but it gets very complicated  because yes, you should be nice to people. You   should be helpful. You should believe in things  and care about things that are good for society.   I think we all, the vast majority of us, believe  in something like that. The problem is that we all   have a tendency to delude ourselves into thinking  that what's good for us is actually good for   society. And so most of the harms that we cause on  the world are well-intentioned and also ignorant.

So if we're trying to live a life where we don't  give a fuck, and by that I mean we're trying to   live a life where we're giving our attention or  our focus in the right places, there are three   subtleties that come along with that. So the first  one is that not giving a fuck is actually about   being comfortable, being different. It's being  comfortable with the fallout or repercussions of   having a different opinion or having a different  point of view or caring about something that other   people don't care about. The irony is that the  people who want to stop giving a fuck the most,   they are the people who are trying not to be  different in any way, shape, or form. They're   the ones who are trying to make everybody happy  all the time. They're the ones who are trying to   just blend in with the crowd. And ultimately that  becomes very stressful because they don't stand   for anything. They don't have anything that they  get to own and call their own. Which brings us to   the second subtlety, which is that the way to stop  giving a fuck about adversity is to give a fuck   about something more important than adversity.  And basically the way to stop giving so many   fuck what everybody thinks all the time is to find  something more important than what everybody else   thinks all the time. It's this idea that you have  to find something in your life that you're willing  to struggle for, that you're willing to stick  your neck out for, that you're willing to plan   a flag end and say, "This is mine. This is what I  care about. This is what I stand for. And if you   don't like it, fuck it. Deal with it." Like not  giving a fuck, it doesn't get rid of adversity,   it just makes the adversity okay. And then finally  the third subtlety is the realization that you   are always giving a fuck in every moment. You're  always choosing something to give a fuck about,   right? Like if you're choosing to try to not  give a fuck about what anybody else thinks,   that is giving a fuck about what everybody else  thinks because you're trying to not give a fuck   about it. So it's giving a fuck is not optional.  It is something that is very much hardwired into   our psychology. It is something that is always  operating and dictating what we focus on and what   we don't focus on. And so the question is, what  are you choosing to focus on and what are you   choosing to not focus on? What are you choosing to  suffer for and what are you choosing to not suffer   for? Where are the yeses in your life and where  are the noes in your life? That ultimately is   the important question. So the tricky thing about  our values is that we often lie to ourselves about   what we actually value. We say to ourselves and  others, "Oh, I really care about honesty and then   we turn around and lie to somebody." Or we say  that we really care about our health but we are   binging cheesecake on a random Thursday afternoon.  So even getting an accurate sense of what we are   prioritizing, what we are giving a fuck about  is often a difficult process. But there are two   techniques that I am going to share with you that  can help you figure out your values in the next   20-30 minutes. So the first one is what I call a  time audit and it is pretty simple. You take out   a sheet of paper, you write down what you spend  your time on throughout the week and try to be as   honest as possible. And if you want to get really  hardcore about it, you can actually track for five   days how much time did you spend on the computer?  How much time did you spend watching Netflix? How   much time did you spend talking to friends? Just  doing that time audit often surprises people. They   think in their head, they are like, "Oh, I am  spending a lot of time at work." But then they   realize they are not doing a whole lot of work.  Or they think that they are spending a lot of   time keeping in touch and connecting with family.  But they are actually not talking to their family   nearly as much as they thought they were. So  when you do the time audit, you get a clear   picture of how many hours are going into each  activity in your life. And then you can also   gauge those in terms of how much you actually  value them. And you start to realize, "Oh, this   thing that I barely value at all, I am spending  15, 20 hours a week doing it." Whereas the thing   that I really value and I feel like I lack in my  life, I am only investing two hours a week into   it. The second technique you can do is a classic  stoic practice known as Memento Mori, which is   you imagine your own death. You imagine that you  are on your deathbed and you are looking back at   your life and you ask yourself, "What was worth  doing and what was a complete waste of time?"   And this practice is incredibly powerful because  I think nothing gives us real clarity on the value   of the things in our life. The way imagining our  own death does. Because most of the things that we   care about on a day to day basis are not going  to matter anymore once we are dead. And only a   few things are. And what you realize when you  do this exercise is that those few things that   are potentially going to matter long after you are  dead, those are actually the things that you wish   you were spending more of your time on. And as  humans, we instinctually avoid thinking about our   own death. It's not fun. It's very uncomfortable.  But I think it's so useful for this reason. And   there's a lot of different ways you can do it.  You can project into the future. Imagine when you   are 80 and you are on your deathbed and you are  looking back at your life. You can do it that way.   Another way to do it is imagine if you have one  year left to live, what would you spend the next   year doing? Another way to do it is what Steve  Jobs did when he was alive, which is every morning   he would look in the mirror and he'd say, "If this  was the last day I was going to be alive, would   I be happy with what I'm doing today?" And if he  said no too many days in a row, then he would make   a major change in his life. So there are a lot of  different ways to attack it, to approach it. But   what's important is that you develop some sort  of regular habit of at least thinking about it.

I think we resist not giving a fuck about things  because we feel like if we let go of something,   it's going to go wrong. It's going to fall  apart. It's going to fail. But the problem is   that any sort of growth or development comes from  a feeling of uncertainty, comes from not knowing   what you're doing, comes from the willingness to  be unsure about what's right and what's wrong.   One of the fundamental Buddhist principles is  this idea of attachment, that all suffering is   ultimately rooted in being attached to whether  it's an idea, a feeling, a view of the world.   And I really see that as kind of an indictment on  certainty and not doubting yourself. And actually   the experience of not giving a fuck about  something is it's actually quite liberating.   Like narrowing your focus to just a handful  of things that really matter in your life,   it's you're not actually limiting yourself, you're  freeing yourself from having to dedicate mental   bandwidth to dozens and dozens of things that  ultimately don't matter. You know, it's funny,   when I was dating my wife, like a lot of men I  agonized over whether I should propose to her or   not. I spent months and months and months thinking  about it and talking to friends and family and   just like weighing all the pros and cons. And  I'm trying to like project into the future,   like understand like a clairvoyant, like, "Is this  the woman for the rest of my life? Am I making the   biggest mistake ever?" And it was funny because  the second that I proposed, all of the doubts   and uncertainty, it just melted away because all  that mattered was that commitment. It's like, "Do   I know if she's the right person for me for the  rest of my life?" No, I don't. But I do know that   I have control over how much I commit to trying to  make her the right person for the rest of my life.   And because I narrowed my focus to the one thing  I had control of, it allowed me to turn off,   it was like turning off 100 television screens in  my mind of like all these alternative realities,   all these like ideas of like other people I could  date and other lives I could live and like what   would happen if this happened or that happened?  It all just got shut off. And suddenly my mind   went silent and there was just this resulting  piece as a result. So it comes back to this   original Buddhist idea that it's what we cling  to that determines our suffering. We all have a   natural instinct to crave certainty in our lives.  And I think the more chaotic the world seems,   the more confusion we have around what to do, the  more we crave knowing something for sure. I think   most of our suffering comes from our certainties  about ourselves, about how the world should be,   how people should treat us, about ideas other  people should have. When we cling on to those   things and refuse to let go, that's what causes  all of detention and conflict, both within   ourselves and with others. And so I actually think  that we should embrace more uncertainty. I think   we should know less. I think people should have  fewer opinions and hold them more loosely. Because   the way our identities work is that the more  I believe myself to be something, the more I'm   going to defend it with everything that I've got.  In my book, I have this concept called Manson's   Law of Avoidance, which states that the more  something potentially threatens your identity,   threatens your certainty of who you are, the  more you will find ways to avoid it. And what's   interesting about the law of avoidance is that  it applies to both good things and bad things. I   think everybody's had an experience of avoiding  something that could be harmful or upsetting or   uncomfortable for us. We find excuses to not go to  the gym, we find reasons to not have a difficult   conversation with a colleague. But a lot of us  have also had experiences where we avoid things   that are good for us, that we sabotage our own  opportunities, that we mess up good relationships.   And I think at our core, that happens for the  exact same reason, that the good thing in our   lives also challenges our notion of who we are. It  also potentially threatens our certainty of how we   see the world. And so our instinct is to resist it  and to act against it.

And so I think the looser  you can hold your identity, the less sure you can  be about yourself or who you are, the less you can   find yourself. The more open you are to all of the  experiences that are going on around you, and the   more objective you can be as you choose to move  through the world. So one way to actually look   at this in yourself is to do a little journaling  exercise. So if you take something in your life   that you're struggling with and take kind of the  core belief behind that conflict or that struggle,   and just sit down and ask yourself three  questions. The first one is, what if I'm wrong?   And take a minute and write out all of the ways  that you could potentially be wrong. You're not   necessarily saying you are wrong, but we just want  to think through all the possibilities of maybe   you're mistaken somewhere, maybe you're missing  something, maybe there's a perspective you haven't   considered yet. Then the second question is, what  would it mean if I'm wrong? What would that say   about me? What would that say about my life? What  would that say about the world? And this is where   you actually start to uncover a lot of the deep  core sensitivities that you're probably avoiding   dealing with, right? It's like, well, if I'm wrong  about this, then that probably means that I don't   know what I'm talking about. Or if I'm wrong about  that, then that means I'm actually the problem in   my relationship. What you start to uncover  are a lot of implications that you probably   instinctively avoid. And finally, ask yourself the  third question, which is, would being wrong give   me a better or worse problem than being right?  I think a lot of people would be surprised that   being wrong, although very painful in the short  term to accept, gives them a much better problem   in their life than holding on to being right. But  as soon as we let it go, the experience that we   have is a liberation, a liberation from all of  the things that we don't have to care about.

It's funny because a lot of people, they hear this  and they say, "Well, that's easy for you to say,   Mr. Big, successful author. You didn't grow up  like I did or you haven't been through what I've   been through." And what's funny about this is that  I think the more hardship you've gone through in   your life, the more important this is, right?  If you think about somebody who's very wealthy,   like a trust fund kid or something, they can  afford to not figure out their values. They can   afford to kind of drift through life aimlessly  and not worry about anything. Whereas like,   if you've grown up in poverty, if you had a lot of  tough shit handed to you throughout your life, you   don't have that luxury. You have to get focused.  It is 100 times more important that you know what   you're spending your time and attention on because  you don't have the luxury of being able to waste   your attention away on things that don't matter.  And the other irony here is that I actually think   it's easier the harder your life circumstances  are. If you think about like a subsistence farmer   in India, they don't have many options. They  wake up. There's one thing to do. You go out   and farm. There's no question. There's no like,  "Oh, what am I doing with my life? Is this what   I'm meant to be? Have I found my purpose?" No,  they go out and farm because if they don't farm,   they're not going to eat. It's that simple.  So any question of purpose or what they're   valuing or what they're prioritizing, it's already  solved. They don't even have to think about it.   Whereas if you're like a typical upper middle  class young person in the United States or Europe,   you have grown up with so many options, so many  opportunities, so many different paths in life   that you could potentially take, that it's  petrifying to consider these things. That you   probably feel completely adrift because you can  envision 20 different versions of your own future.   And because you can imagine 20 different versions  of your own future, it is terrifying to pick one   because that means you have to kill the other 19.  I think this is why this message is resonating so   much in this day and age, and particularly with  these younger generations, because these are the   first generations that are growing up with this  much optionality, with this much exposure to   all the different lives. All the different life  paths that they could take. That's when you need   values the most is when you could see all of these  different options and opportunities, but you only   have access to take one. Ultimately, in all of  this, the important thing to remember is that the   quality of your life is determined by the quality  of your values. And the quality of your values   is determined by the quality of the problems that  come with those values, because no matter what you   choose to care about, no matter what you give a  fuck about, it's going to create problems in your   life. There are going to be struggles associated  with that thing that you care about. And so you   want to care about the things that bring the  right problems, that bring the problems into   your life that you are happy to have, that feel  worth having. Because that ultimately is what's  going to create that long term sense of  happiness, that eudaimonic happiness.

Chapter four, achieving the right kind of  success. Today, we live in a success obsessed  culture. People feel like if they can just make  enough money, if they can just have the right car   or buy the right house, if they can find the  right partner, then everything's going to be   fixed and fine. And what's tricky is that I think  we tend to be kind of bad at defining success for   ourselves. We don't think very hard about how are  we measuring success? What is the metric by which   we determine if whether we're making progress or  not? And a lot of this comes back to understanding   our own motivations, right? Like a lot of people,  maybe they want to have a really fancy car or   really nice house or live in a certain part of  town. And they think that's actually what they   want, but really what they want is respect or  approval or attention, not realizing that there   are way easier ways to go about getting respect,  approval and attention in your life than having   to go spend a million dollars in a house on the  other side of town.

If we don't question how we're  measuring success, then we're going to be unclear  on what we're willing to give up to get there. And   if we're not willing to give anything up to get  there, then we're basically guaranteeing that  we're never going to be successful in the first   place. In these days, people are particularly  obsessed with extraordinary success, like massive   outlier success, multi-multi-billionaire type  success. And people want to replicate that, but   I don't think people are paying attention to the  right thing. I don't think they realize what is   actually involved. Because if you want to achieve   massive extraordinary amounts of success, you have  to do three things well. And people tend to ignore   or overlook two of them. The first one is, is  that you have to have a contrarian take. This   is just basic logic. If you want to capitalize  on an opportunity that is greater than 99.9% of   other opportunities, then you have to be willing  to look somewhere that 99.9% of other people are   not willing to look. You have to find an idea  that 99.9% of people think is a stupid idea.   You have to be willing to consider it. And the  irony is that this willingness to be contrarian,   this willingness to look at ideas that  other people think are ridiculous,   usually goes completely against why people want to  be extraordinarily successful. People imagine that   if they're extraordinarily successful, they're  going to be celebrated and everybody's going to   love them. Everybody's going to want to hang out  with them and be friends with them. And it's like,   no, actually, the thing that's going to make you  that successful is going to make you a pariah.   It's going to make you look ridiculous. You're  going to sound stupid. People are going to be   like, that guy is crazy. What is he on about?  Step number two is you have to be right about   that contrarian idea. Most contrarian ideas are  contrarian for a reason because they're horrible   ideas. They're ridiculous. They're wrong. They're  stupid. So you have to find that rare contrarian   idea that everybody else is overlooked and  everybody else is wrong about. And then step   number three is you have to have enough conviction  on that idea to execute on it massively. And this   is where everybody gets tripped up because they  look at somebody like Steve Jobs or Bill Gates or   Warren Buffett, whoever, name your famous super  successful person, and they look at like, okay,   what was their morning routine? How many hours  a day were they working? What did they do with   their weekends? Completely missing the fact  that this person took an idea that everybody   else thought was ridiculous and then completely  rearranged their life to optimize for that idea.   The optimization itself is completely secondary.  Whether you wake up at 4am or 6am or work 13 hours   a day or 12 hours a day, it doesn't matter. It  really doesn't matter. What matters is you found   the right contrarian idea. You're correct about  it where most other people are incorrect and then   you invested massively into it. Like one of the  things Warren Buffett said himself is that over   the course of a career that has spanned nearly  80 years, the vast majority of his success could   be boiled down to roughly a dozen correct bets.

And the truth is that almost nobody will do this  because A) they're probably not going to have  a contrarian idea to begin with because they're   too dependent on the people around them to dictate  what they think. B) even if they have a contrarian   idea, they're probably not going to be right about  it. And then C) even if they're right about it,   they're probably going to be too scared to drop  everything else they're doing and go all in on it.   And even if you do get to the other side  of it, even if you do get all the money   and the accolades and the fame, now you're in  a situation where everybody who comes to you,   you don't know why they're there. Are they there  to get something from you? Are they there because   they want something from you? Are they trying  to take advantage of you in some way? And you   start asking yourself, where were these people  before I was famous? What you realize is that   that extraordinary success, it creates conditions  for people to be attracted to you that undermines   the benefits of having them in your life,  that it complicates your relationships, it   complicates your lifestyle. It makes you consider  all sorts of repercussions and motivations that   you never had to consider before. I see this  misalignment all the time with people who come   to me with questions. Obviously, I hear from a lot  of aspiring writers and authors who come to me for   advice. And it's funny because so many people come  and they're like, "I want to be a writer, I want   to do what you do. I've got all these great ideas.  How do I get there?" And my answer to them is   always, "Go publish 50 articles and then come back  and ask me again." And I say this for two reasons.   One is, it determines who's willing to actually do  the work from the ones who just want to fantasize.   But the other reason is that by actually writing  50 pieces and publishing them and getting feedback   on them, that in and of itself is probably going  to solve 90% of the person's questions. They're   going to learn everything that they would have  asked me. They're going to find out anyway. And   it's funny because I've been giving this answer to  people for almost two decades. I've probably told   multiple hundreds of people to do this at this  point, and only two people ever did it. And what   that tells me is that people want the result. They  don't want the process. People want the benefits.   They don't want the cost. And if you don't want  the cost of something, then I would argue you   don't actually want the thing.

I went through this  myself when I was younger. Before I was a writer,  I attended music school, and I wanted to be a   professional musician. And it's funny because when  I was in high school, I was the music guy. I'd   bring my guitar to parties and I'd sing and play  songs. And it was kind of a social identity. And I  loved it. It kind of defined my whole adolescence.   But when I got to music school and I actually  tried to be a professional musician, I realized   something, which is that the experience of the  music. The experience of playing music for people   and hearing applause and being seen as this really  talented guy on stage, that's like less than 1% of   what the experience of being a musician is. 99%  of the experience is practicing and rehearsing by   yourself alone in a room, being celebrated by  nobody. And I hated that experience. I didn't   enjoy any aspect of it. And it took me about 2  years in music school to finally accept to myself   that I don't actually like being a musician. That  because I'm not willing to sit in a room by myself   for 5 hours a day, practicing songs, I'm also  not willing to do what it takes to be the guy on   stage. So I think people need to stop separating  the process from the outcome. They need to realize   that being a successful best selling author is  posting hundreds and hundreds of articles online.   It's having your writing ridiculed. It's having  people trash you in the comments. It's having   people misunderstand you constantly. That is what  the process is. That is what the reality is. The   benefits are just 1% of it. The other problem  of focusing so much on the outcome instead of   the process is that it can paralyze you. It seems  too big. It seems impossible. Like this gigantic   mountain that you have to climb and surmount.  And so I think people just lose motivation and   they become too afraid to start.

One of the most  important life lessons I ever learned was actually  from my high school math teacher. His name was  Mr. Packwood. I remember we were sitting in class.   We were taking an exam. And I guess most of us  were having trouble with it because we were just   sitting there staring at the page, not writing  anything. And I remember he stopped the class   and he said, "Can I say something really quick?"  He said, "Let me give you a piece of advice."   He said, "If you're stuck on a problem, just  rewrite the problem and try to find the first   step." He said, "Don't worry about solving the  entire problem. Just rewrite it and find step one   because there's something magical in the process  of just writing step one. That steps two, three,   four, and five will start to reveal themselves."  And sure enough, it was crazy. I remember sitting   there writing out the problem, writing out like  the most basic step, and then suddenly seeing the   problem differently and realizing what steps two,  three, and four were. And as I got to university   and adulthood, I realized that this applied to so  many things in life. Like if I had a term paper   and I didn't know how to start it, I'd pull back  and I'd say, "You know what? Let's just write two   sentences. Let's just write one sentence." And  sure enough, in the process of writing that one   sentence, I could see the whole first paragraph.  And then in the process of writing that paragraph,   I would see the whole introduction. I saw this in  my social life. I'd go to a party, I'd see a cute   girl, I didn't know what to say to her. Just walk  up and say, "Hi." And in the process of saying,   "Hi," I'd find the next thing to say. And then  in the process of saying that, I'd find the next   thing to say. And next thing you know, you're  in a 20-minute conversation. Eventually, when I   started writing, I codified this and I called it  the "do something principle," which is basically   when you want something in your stuck, just do  something. Find the minimum viable action. Find   the action that feels doable in this moment. And  just go do it. Because in the process of doing it,   you will generate the motivation and inspiration  to keep going. And I think this is actually one of   the most profound realizations that I've had in my  life, which is that inspiration is not the cause   of action. It's the effect of action. The action  comes first. And then once you've done the action,   you get the inspiration to keep going. You don't  magically feel motivated one day on the couch   and then go get up and go to the gym. You get up  and go to the gym and the fact that you're there   motivates you to actually do something. And so  when you're stuck in life, look for that minimum   viable action. Look for the simplest thing you  can do in this moment. Because just in the act of   doing it, you will generate the motivation to keep  going.

The other reason people don't take action  is a simple fear of failure and rejection. They  don't want to embarrass themselves. They don't   want to make a fool of themselves. And it's funny  because if you zoom out and you think about this a   little objectively, this is very irrational.  Because what is rejection? Rejection is you   signaling to the world. This is what I'm about.  This is what I care about. And it is a certain   percentage of the world looking at that and  being like, "No, not for me." And that's great   because now you don't have to deal with a bunch of  people who weren't going to make you happy anyway.   This is something that is very true, I think, in  dating that applies to everything, which is that   rejection is secretly a good thing because it is  the sorting mechanism of the universe for removing   all of the things that are not going to make  you happy. The other way failure and rejection   benefits you is that it's information. It shows  you what you're good at, what you're not good at.   It shows you how you can do things better. It's  part of the learning process. It's those failures   that generate the information and feedback that  allow you to become great at it. Nobody became   great the first time they did anything. So once  you start seeing failure as part of the process,   you see rejection as part of the natural  filtration of your life. Not only do you stop   being afraid of it, but you actually start leaning  into it. So it's funny, in my own career, I quit   my job in finance in 2009 to start blogging. And  everybody around me thought I was insane. But I   just had this conviction, "You know what? Content  on the Internet. It's going to be a thing. This   is really going to go somewhere. There's going to  be opportunities." And so I was publishing every   single day. I was writing articles all week, every  week. I was working around the clock. And for a   few years, I was struggling to get by. But what I  didn't realize at that time is that I was market   testing my ideas. I was finding different  perspectives that worked with people, that   connected with people. And I was getting reps that  most other writers in the world weren't getting.   Most other writers at that time, they would  publish once a month or once a week or once every   other year if they were writing a book. So they  didn't get that market feedback from the reader.   They didn't have that immediate relationship.  And so because I got all those reps and because I   wrote all of those bad articles and because I got  to see what all my good ideas were and all my bad   ideas were, when I did get my first book deal, I  had a much clearer sense of what I wanted to say   and what I thought was going to resonate and what  people connected with when I talked about it. And   all three of my books were massive. Smash hits.  And it's funny because by that point, I had spent   seven years being on this island, going home at  Christmas, having everybody in my family look at   me and be like, "What do you do for work again?"  And me trying to explain to them what a blog was   and why, no, thousands of people read this, I  promise. They're just kind of shaking their head   and being like, "Who? How do you make money?" And  then suddenly being this huge number one New York   Times bestseller, "My book is in every airport,  it's in every bookstore, it's on TV, it's on the   radio." And seeing the way people's disposition  changed and seeing how suddenly different people   started taking a different attitude towards me,  different aspects of my life started changing. And   don't get me wrong, success is great. Money's  great. Like, I wouldn't take it back. But it   does complicate things and it doesn't play out as  cleanly or smoothly as it does in your fantasies.   And what really surprised me is that after my  books took off and I found myself with all of   this publishing success, I went through a bit  of a period of depression because I didn't know   what the hope for anymore. I didn't have dreams  anymore. Like basically everything I had dreamed   of since I was 20 years old had come true. And  while that was amazing, it was amazing for a few   months, maybe a year. But then after that, I woke  up, I was the same guy, had the same problems,   dealt with the same bullshit, and I had nothing to  look forward to. It was like, "Oh wow, everything,   the best things I could have imagined for myself  are in my past. So what do I have to look forward   to? Why do anything?" And it was a surprisingly  hard period to work through, especially because   nobody wants to shed any tears for a depressed  multimillionaire. Nobody sympathizes with the   guy whose book is number one everywhere. It is  like, "I'm sad. I don't know what to do with my   life." And so you find yourself in this very odd,  lonely position that really the only people that   relate or understand are other people who have  experienced sudden astronomical success. It taught   me a lot about what is actually meaningful and  important in our lives. And I'm extremely proud of   the books and I'm extremely proud of the success.  But it showed me the importance of having things   to look forward to outside of my work, having  dreams that exist outside of my own achievements.   And be always maybe caring about something that  can't be achieved, that isn't worldly or material.   Want to support the channel? Join the Big Think   Members community where you get  access to videos early, ad-free.