The Most Significant Lesson To Learn From ‘The Subtle Art of Not Giving a F*ck’ by Mark Manson

And where this lesson truly does not apply

The most important thing I learned from Mark Manson’s book, The Subtle Art of Not Giving a F*ck comes in the form of a quote that sums up the essence of his whole book:

Wanting a positive experience is a negative experience. Accepting a negative experience is a positive experience.

This is a concept I’ve mulled over because it’s versatile in applying to many situations. It’s also simultaneously overapplied to situations in a way that perpetuates harm. To this end, we need to rethink where this piece fits in our day-to-day lives.

Wanting a positive experience is a negative experience: where it fits

Example: Wanting data analysis and/or coding to never run into errors when you first program it.

Wouldn’t be a dream, to write a piece of code that runs on the first try? Wanting this unrealistic standard is a negative experience because I’ll never reach it and then end up blaming myself for not reaching that bar.

Example: Wanting a speech to go perfectly the first time, without any hiccups, man-made or technology-related.

Wouldn’t this also be a dream! As seasoned speakers know… this is unrealistic. Even when we’ve done our best to prepare and practice presentations, technology often produces inexplicable hiccups. Unlucky moments happen, and it’s part of the human experience. Expecting that none of these will ever happen is a negative experience.

So, this piece of advice guides us to question whether our expectations are realistic, or whether we’re driven by perfectionistic tendencies that set up the high standards that we are likely to fail.

Accepting a negative experience is a positive experience: where it fits

Example: Accepting that editors will rip apart your draft and provide feedback that you might dislike is a negative experience with positive outcomes.

Sure, it’s so difficult to accept rejection or extensive revisions, but in the long run, learning how to implement those pieces of feedback is helpful to growing as a writer. Accepting that the frustrating experience with an eye for the long-term positive outcome is an important part of growth.

Example: Accepting that getting up to run outside in -10 degrees celsius weather goes against everything your body wants at that moment will also have solid long-term outcomes.

At the same time, committing to exercising often brings us longer-term health benefits, despite the momentary discomfort of getting started outside.

This piece of advice fits best for acknowledging that many long-term gains require short-term suffering or at best discomfort and frustration. It highlights that if those long-term gains fit with our values, the first step to living in accordance with these values is to learn how to tolerate some of the short-term frustrations.

Where this advice doesn’t apply

I am conscious and cautious when people bring this concept out to get minoritized folks to “accept” systemic bias.

Caveat: I can never be sure what Mark Manson, the author, intended with this quote. Given the tone and context of his piece, my best guess is that it’s not what he intended. He wrote for a particular audience in mind, and in accordance with his values, didn’t sweat it over the minor nuances of how a simplified quote might be misapplied by others who misinterpreted his words.

Being a writer is tough because sound bytes of what you write may be quoted out of context or misinterpreted outside of the context. As a writer myself, I sympathize with that.

At the same time, it doesn’t mean that misunderstandings don’t happen, which is why I wanted to provide the caveat and limitations of this quote from my perspective. As someone who genuinely found value in this lesson, I firmly also wanted to share that it’s not a panacea for all problems.

No single quote is ever going to achieve that.

I’ve been told that wanting a positive experience such as not wanting to face discrimination is a negative experience itself because it’s unrealistic. I’ve been told that I need to “accept” the status quo so that I can have a better perception of the world.

My understanding is that this misinterpretation of the quote comes from a level of ignorance. People who have succeeded at applying this lesson to their life in a limited scope will try to impress upon other people that this is the solution, even when contexts are different.

We all see the world through the lens of our experience, and when we don’t question this lens at any point, we end up enforcing a status quo that may not actually work as well for other people as it did for us.

The unfortunate news of this imposition that systemic bias is a personal failure is that I’ve actually internalized and tried to apply this in my life. I did everything I could to “accept” how things were, and to make choices that would stop putting myself in harm’s way. Spoilers, but it didn’t work.

“Accepting” microaggressions will not stop these microaggressions from continuing to happen and have consistent negative outcomes for BIPOC. There is no “long-term value” from accepting these microaggressions short-term. I think sometimes others touting this advice try to input “better mental health” as that long-term reason for accepting this “short-term unpleasantry”.

Cognitively “accepting” and trying to “reframe” microaggressions through therapy didn’t improve my mental health. In fact, even though I pretended that things were better, my body was falling apart as the trauma showed through physical symptoms.

The problem with “accepting”

I’ve also heard the spin on this advice that “accepting” isn’t condoning. What this means to me is that while you acknowledge that past events have happened, you are not agreeing that they should continue.

I agree with the sentiment, but have personally chosen not to use the word “accept” when it’s to be followed with the word “racist encounters”. This may be semantics, but “accept” is a word that includes the burdening message of “don’t be angry”, “calm down”, and “get over it already”.

There’s an element of saying, “stop telling this story because it’s happened in the past”. Even when the person saying it doesn’t intend to or say these things, the word itself holds emotional baggage, and this is what it conveys to a lot of people.

Instead, I use the word “acknowledge”, because that’s exactly what I’m doing. In the short-term, I acknowledge that a microaggression has happened.

I acknowledge that my system goes into overdrive into thinking about the 182736129837 “what-ifs” for things I could have done to protect myself.

I acknowledge that part of that is that the responsibility for change has overwhelmingly fallen on me and the “what-ifs” are my way of preparing for protecting myself in the future.

I acknowledge, too, that the responsibility should not have fallen solely on me. These are all complex pieces of information and beliefs that I lay to rest so that I stop dwelling in my cycle of rumination. This is how I meet my need for taking care of my mental health, in the short term.

In the long-term, I use what those emotions and thoughts have highlighted to me to advocate and enact change. But I only do so after I’ve maintained a level of self-care so that I’m not burning myself out. Part of it is that relative to others I have some level of privilege to not have to burn through myself to advocate for things, as I have a safe space to live in.

Part of that is that I want to advocate for and establish a norm where everyone has the same ability as me to prioritize self-care before launching into advocacy and activism. That is where allies need to start stepping up and doing work so the burden doesn’t fall on BIPOC shoulders.

Summary and takeaways

• Wanting a positive experience can be a negative experience works for reframing unrealistic expectations of the world to more doable expectations we can reach.
• Accepting a negative experience can be a positive experience that applies to enduring short-term frustrations that are part of growth and fit with your long-term values.
• This advice seldom applies to situations of systemic bias, because accepting this bias doesn’t actually lead to any long-term benefits and can actually perpetuate harm. Wanting to no longer experience systemic bias is not unrealistic or unreasonable.
• Instead of “accept”, I like to use “acknowledge” as a way of taking stock of all the complex and nuanced pieces of encountering a racist encounter

Lucy Dan 蛋小姐 (she/her/她) is currently building a reading list now that she’s actively reading a lot more in her leisure time! Please do leave your recommendations if you have any!

https://readmedium.com/ode-to-my-ketchup-sandwich-161fdff2454e