The Subtle Art of Not Giving a F*CK: A Counterintuitive Approach to Living a Good Life

This chapter includes four subchapters: “The Misadventures of Disappointment Panda,” “Happiness Comes from Solving Problems,” “Emotions are Overrated,” and “Choose Your Struggle.” Manson begins with another anecdote. This one is a brief biographical sketch of the Buddha as a boy, when he was sheltered and protected from any form of human suffering. When the Buddha finally sees suffering, it transforms his worldview. Manson uses the story to set up the main point of this chapter, (and its title): that happiness is a problem. Manson questions the modern Western tendency to feel as though the pursuit of happiness should somehow be free of adversity and that it’s a final destination we arrive at. In Manson’s view, this misunderstanding of what happiness is, mainly that it can be arrived at free of harm or of sacrifice, leads to a slew of personal problems, including addictive behaviors. Manson instead posits that suffering is inevitable and that a form of liberation comes from accepting this fact.

Manson claims that happiness isn’t some cheap-and-easy end goal but that it comes from solving problems. The reward we get from overcoming challenges results in happiness. However, it’s short-lived because new problems always arise. In this case, problems are adversity, and there are degrees of it, just as there are degrees of suffering. Manson isn’t trying to say that suffering is good, nor is he claiming that it’s only a state of mind that we must overcome. He rightly recognizes that life involves real and painful suffering. However, he still maintains that happiness comes as a result of at least some level of suffering. Without the suffering, there really is no true happiness; instead, what we arrive at is a false happiness.

In addition, Manson discusses suffering as based in both physical and psychological pain and explores the biological rationale for its existence in our lives. He sees this as a basic fact of life, but in his view, people tend to have a distorted view of how they should become happy. He refers to the “hedonic treadmill,” in which people instinctively associate happiness with material wealth; they achieve a certain level of comfort, enough to buy new things, and they become bored by these things and this new way of life, which sets them off on a new pursuit to fill up their lives with equally shallow, meaningless artifacts of what they perceive as proof of happiness. The way to break this cycle, according to Manson, is to simply—but fully and entirely—accept the position that happiness comes only as a result of struggle.