The Subtle Art Of Not Giving A F*ck

P.180 Consumer Culture is very good at making us want more, more, more… But more is not always better…When we are overloaded with opportunities and options, we suffer from what psychologists refer to as the paradox of choice. Basically, the more options we’re give , the less satisfied we become, because we are aware of all other options we are potentially forfeiting.

P.110 Victimhood Chic The responsibility/fault fallacy allows people to pass off the responsibility for solving their problems to others. This ability to alleviate responsibility through blame to others gives people a temporary high and a feeling of moral righteousness.

P.84 Staying positive. Lost your job? Great! That’s an opportunity to explore your passion. While there is something to be said for “staying on the sunny side of life”, the truth is, sometimes life sucks, and the healthiest thing you can do is admit it. Constant positivity is a form of avoidance, not a valid solution to life’s problems.

P.83 Always being right. Our brains are inefficient machines. We consistently make poor assumptions, misjudge probabilities, misremember facts…People who base their self-worth on being right about everything prevent themselves from learning from mistakes. They lack the ability to take on new perspectives and empathise with others.

P.82 Material success. Many people measure their self-worth based on how much money they make or what kind of car they drive… Research shows that once one is able to provide for basic physical needs (food, shelter, and so on) l, the correlation between happiness and worldly success quickly approaches zero.

P.81 There are handful of common values that create really poor problems for people. Pleasure is great, but it’s horrible value to prioritise your life around. Pleasure is a false good. Research shows that people who focus their energy on superficial pleasure end up more anxious, more emotionally unstable, and more depressed. Pleasure is not the cause of happiness;rather, it is the effect. If you get the other stuff right (the other values and metrics), then pleasure will naturally occur as by product.

P73. Most self-help gurus ignore this deeper level of self-awareness…they take people who are miserable because they want to be rich, and they give them all sorts of advice on how to make money…while ignoring important value-based questions: Why do they feel such a need to be rich in first place?

P.71 Why do I consider this to be success/failure? How am I choosing to measure myself… and everyone around me?…our values determine the nature of our problems and the nature of our problems determines the quality of our lives. Values underlie everything we are and do. P.79 Our values determine the metrics by which we measure ourselves and everyone else. Story about the Megadeath guitarist, who got kicked out of Metallica.