TSAoNGaF, Mark Manson

Chapter 1 : Don't Try
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> The key to a good life is not giving a fuck about more; it's giving a fuck about less, giving a fuck about only what is true and important 
> The Feedback Loop from Hell 
> The desire for more positive experiences is itself a negative experience And, paradoxically, the acceptance of one's negative experience is itself a positive experience. 
> Being open with your insecurities paradoxically makes you more confident and charismatic around others. 
> To not give a fuck is to stare down life's most difficult and terrifying challenges and still take action. 
> Failing is the most worthy struggle, and perhaps the ONLY struggle in one's life. 
> Life will NOT be exactly the way you want it to be. If you can't come to terms with it, it will eat you alive. 
> Subtelty#1: Not giving a fuck does not mean being indeifferent; it means being comfortable with being different. It means not caring about adversity in the face of his goals, he doesnt care about pissing people off to do what is right. 
	>> You MUST give a fuck about something in life. 
> Subtelty#2 To give a fuck about adversity, you must first give a fuck about something more important than adversity 
	>> If you give too many fucks about trivial problems, it means that you dont have much in life to give legitimate fucks about. 
	>> When a person has no problems, the mind invents some. 
	>> So finding something meaningful and important in life is perhaps the most productive use of time and energy 
	>> Maturity is what happens when you learn to give a fuck about whta is truly fuck-worthy

Chapter 2 : Happiness is a problem 
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> Happiness is not a solvable equation. Dissatisfation and unease are inheretn parts of human nature, and necessary for happiness to exist. 
	>> Life is essentially an endless series of problems.
	>> There is no life without problems. Instead, hope for a life full of "good" problems. 
	>> Happiness comes from *solving* problems
	>> Most people are either in (1)Denial or have a (2)Victim mentality about their problems
> Emotions are actually an evolutionary call to action. 
	>> We fail if we rely on emotions too much because they are temporary. 
	>> HEDONIC TREADMILL 
> Choose your struggle. 
	>> It's not about what do you wanna enjoy. 
	>> It's about what pain do you want to sustain 
	>> If even after that you can't achieve it because you are avoiding the pain, ask youself: Do i actually want it? 
		>>> Am I actually only in love with the result? 
		>>> Am I not in love with the process? 
	>> Our problems birth happiness ones solved, along with slightly better problems. 
		>>> It's a never ending spiral, and the joy is the climb itself. 

Chatper 3 : You are not special 
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> A true measure of self-worth is not how the person feels about the positive experiences, rather how he feels about the negative experiences. 
	>> They can be honest about the negative aspects, AND then act on improving them 
> When real traumatic events happen in our lives, we feel like we are incapable of fixing the problems - leads to us being miserable and feeling helpless -> ENTITLEMENT
	>> I'm awesome and the rest of you suck, so i deserve special treatment 
	>> I suck and the rest of you all are awesome, so I deserve special treatment 
	>> Your problems are not privileged in their severity or pain
> Tyranny of Exceptionalism 
	>> Our lives are filled with info about the extremes of the bell curve, thanks social media. 
	>> Tech has replaced our economic problems with psychological ones 
> Anti-Entitlement
	>> Think they're average/mediocre
	>> Obsessed with improvement 
	>> Become amazing 
	>> Acknowledge of your averageness liberates you from lofty expectations and judgement
	>> Sound ordinary? Because they are the ones that truly matter. 

Chapter 4 : The value of Suffering 
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> If suffering is unavoidable, we shouldn't be asking "How can I stop the suffering", rather ask "Why am I suffering - for what purpose?"
> Self Awareness Onion
	1. WHAT am i feeling? 
	2. WHY am I feeling this? 
> Problems may be inevitable, but how we intrepret it is not. We get to control what they mean, and the standard by which we choose to measure them. 
	>> If you want to change how you see your problems, you have to change what you value and/or how you measure success/failure. 
> Shitty values: 
	1. Pleasure
		>> This is easy to find and easy to lose. 
		>> Pleasure is not the cause of happiness, it is a result. 
	2. Material Success
		>> Never ends wants
		>> Extra 10k wont make you any happier if you are already living comfortably
	3. Being right always 
		>> Far more helpful that we are ignorant and won't know anything for certain. This keeps us unattached from superstition and poorly informed belief, and the healthy dose of skepticism keeps us growing 
	4. Staying Positve 
		>> Denying negative emotions will result in a prolonged emotional dysfunction
		>> "one day, in retrospect, the years of struggle will strike you as the most beautiful." - Sigmund Freud 
	> The aim is to have good values and metrics in place, and the pleasure will flow naturally. By itself, pleasure is an "empty high". 
> Good Values vs Bad values 
	>> Reality-based vs Superstitous 
	>> Socially Contrsuctive vs Socially Destructive 
	>> Immediate vs Not-Immediate 
	>> Controllable vs Uncontrollable 
	>> Achieved Internally vs Depends on external events 
> Good values are about prioritization 
	>> This is what self-improvement is all about 

Chapter 5 : You are always Choosing 
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> Choice is the difference between hate and love, painful and powerful 
> The realization that we are RESPONSIBLE for everything that happens to us, regargdless of whose FAULT it is, is where every improvement stems 
	>> FAULT and RESPONSIBILITY are different
	>> We have no control over what happens to us.
	>> But we control how we interpret it
	>> Fault is past tense, responsibility is present tense 
	>> People may be at blame for what they did to you, but YOU are responsible 
	>> Taking responsibility of problems is where real learning comes from

Chapter 6 : You're wrong about everything 
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> We can't get the ultimate right answers in this life, so we keep trying, so we are a bit less wrong tomorrow
> Instead of looking to be right, search for ways in you are wrong : DISCONFIRMATION
> Be careful what you believe : Meredith Maran, 1988
> Memories are distorted, like the 10 man telephone line we palyed as kids 
	>> Your truer-than-true story is 50% true at best 
> Perhaps the answer is to trust yourself LESS. Since we are so unreliable, questioning our own intentions and motivations would be more productive.
> Pursuit of certainty breeds insecurity, backward law 
> Our values are imperfect and incomplete, and to assume otherwise puts in a dangerously dogmatic mindset that breeds entitlement 
//ASIDE: Parkinson's Law: Work expands so as to fill up the time available for its completion
//ASIDE: Murphy's Law: Whatever can go wrong, will go wrong
> Manson's law of avoidance: The more something threatens your identity, the more you will avoid it
> NEVER find yourself, always keep searching
> How to be less certain of yourself? 
	>> Question#1: What if I'm wrong? 
		>>> As a general rule, we're the world's worst observer of ourselves 
	>> Question#2: What would it mean if I'm wrong? 
		>>> Questions our values 
		>>> Forces us to consider how a set of contradictory values would feel like 
		>>> "It is the mark of an educated mind to be able to entertain thought without accepting it." - Aristotle

Chapter 7: Failure is the way forward 
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> NOT prusuing your dreams/projects is failure
> If someone is better at sth than you are, they have failed at it more times than you have
	>> a child falls hundreds of times during the time he learns to walk. he never stops and thinks, geez i don't have a knack for it, might as well give up. 
	>> Result of education system, which doesnt let us fail. And parents dont let us screw up often enough. 
	>> This confines us and stifles us, and we become afraid to fail 
> Bad metrics are result oriented. Once you achieve it, then what? 
> Good values are process oriented, can never stop 
> Just shut up and do it, as simple as that from the outside. From the inside, the problems are complex and paralyzes us
> Learn to sustain the pain you've chosen. Relish it, savour it. Then ACT DESPITE OF IT. 
> If you're stuck on a problem, dont just sit there and think about it. Just start working on it. The answers will follow 
> *** Action is not the result of motivation, it is also the cause of it

Chapter 8: The importance of saying no
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> aboslute freedom, by itself, means nothing 
//ASIDE: Russian frankness, contrast with western freedom
> avoid FOMO. Reject sth to focus on sth worth it
//ASIDE: rejection and boundaries in a relationship 
> It is difficult to recognize the difference between choice and obligation. So just ask yourself, if i reject doing this, how will the relationship change? 
> Breadth of experience is necessary when you are discovering yourself and are young. But depth is where the gold is at. 

Chapter 9: And then you die...
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> Without death, everything woud feel inconsequential, all experience arbitrary, all metrics and values suddenly zero. 
> Denial of Death, Becker 
	>> Death Terror
	>> Immortality Projects
	>> Bitter Antidote 
> "The fear of death comes from the fear of life. A man who lives fully is prepared to die at any time." - Mark Twain