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The Subtle Art Of Not Giving A F*ck 

One Sentence-Summary:  The Subtle Art Of Not Giving A F*ck  does away with the positive 
psychology craze to instead give you a Stoic life that might not always be happy, but 
meaningful and centered only around what’s important to you. 
Favorite quote from the author: “Who you are is defined by what you’re willing to 
struggle for.” 
 The Subtle Art Of Not Giving A F*ck , Mark Manson’s first “proper” book, this instant New 
York Times bestseller is a no BS self-help book for people who usually hate self-help. 
Mark Manson gets that life has become overwhelming and the only way to find our center 
around the things that really matter to us is to not give a f*ck about anything else. 
Here are 3 favorite lessons: 
1. Values you can’t control are bad values to follow. 
2. Don’t believe you know anything with certainty, for it keeps you from improving. 
3. Trying to leave a legacy might ruin your life. 
The trick of not giving a fuck about most things is that you’ll be able to give one about what 
really matters to you. 

The Subtle Art Of Not Giving A F*ck Summary 
Lesson 1: Only hold values you control. 

Mark is a very  Stoic  guy and it shines through his writing and advice. A common idea in 
Stoicism is to  focus only on the things you can control . This is easy enough to understand and 
implement when it comes to your actions, but it can be applied to more intangible aspects of 
your life as well. 
Take your values, for example. I know it’s hard to put them into words, but if you try to 
describe yourself in, say, three adjectives, you already have a good idea of which values most 
dictate your life. Let’s say you chose the words honest, punctual and popular. Here’s where 
Mark makes an interesting remark: Only choose to have values you can control. 
Most of us give up some of our ideals as we grow up, try to have a career and make money. 
While that’s just part of real life, it’s important you don’t hand off the steering wheel 
altogether. Values you don’t control are bad, because they’ll be a constant source of 
unnecessary suffering in your life. 

When we look at the three we just mentioned, honesty is 100% in your control. Only you 
know how honest you are, but no one else needs to. Punctuality is partially in your control. If 
you always leave with plenty of buffer time, you can compensate for most potential obstacles. 
Popularity, however, is totally out of your grasp. Sure, you can be nice and friendly to 
everyone, but you can’t control other peoples’ opinions.  Some will always hate you, no matter 
what you do . 
Therefore, popularity isn’t the best value to focus on and you could try replacing it with one 
more controllable, such as kindness. 

Lesson 2: Certainty hampers growth. 

What a great principle distilled into just three words: certainty hampers growth. Imagine you 
could choose between two modes of moving through the world: one in which you think 
everything you know is 100% true and one in which you think nothing you know is 100% 
true. Both are stressful, but which one do you think would help you make better decisions? 
The latter, of course. While there’s some middle ground to be found here, rejecting the idea 
that you know anything for sure is a great base to start learning from. This is true for 
discovering  factual knowledge , such as  using the scientific method to build business 
hypotheses  helps arrive at better conclusions, but it is also true for gaining  conceptual 
knowledge . 
The second kind is more implicit knowledge about the relationships between various entities. 
Let’s take your place in the social hierarchy at school, for example. If you’re convinced 
you’re ugly, you’ll be sad a lot. But if you notice that you get lots of compliments at school, 
people call you charming and some have a crush on you, that’s evidence your brain is playing 
you with false certainty. 
If you allow yourself to have a little doubt, you can then disprove this limiting belief you hold 
about yourself. 

Lesson 3: Don’t obsess about leaving a legacy. 

Here’s an uncomfortable, but important reminder: You’re going to die one day. We all are. 
Whether we admit it or not, when the time comes closer, we’re all scared. That’s why many 
of us want to  leave a legacy , myself included. However, Mark says that might ruin our short 
amount of precious time here on earth. 
The more we’re driven to build a great body of work, the more start chasing fame, 
working too much and focusing on the future. What if instead, we just  tried to be useful in 
the present?  We could still help a ton of people, enjoy our days and fully be here, while we’re 
here. 
Mark’s stance is clear: Find ways to bring yourself, your loved ones and the people you 
meet  joy in the now  and let the legacy part take care of itself.