This is a self-help guide to reducing your stress levels by choosing to care only about those things that are important to you.
What I Liked
I found this a very odd book to read. In almost every chapter, I found myself disagreeing with his evidence and examples, often thinking they proved the opposite of what he was trying to use them to prove, yet at the same time agreeing with some of the premises. It felt more like he had some solid ideas throughout, just not very well developed. Like, for instance, that we have limited bandwidth to care about things and therefore we should not care about a lot of unimportant stuff (hence the title), finding problems you like to solve (i.e. what you love), prioritizing better values for ourselves in line with what we love, and certainty being an enemy of growth (so you should risk failure more).
What I Didn’t Like
Most of his examples are Millenial-style rants, not actual evidence to support his arguments, and it is a lot of work to come to the conclusion “don’t sweat the small stuff and it is all small stuff”, but with swearing.
The Bottom Line
Not worth reading but at least I got a reading badge for it
As part of PolyWogg’s Reading Challenge 2020, I wanted to read the uber-popular “The Subtle Art of Not Giving a F*ck” by Mark Manson. I frequently avoid pop psych stuff as the analytical side is rarely up to my standards, but it is subtitled a “Counterintuitive Approach to Living a Good Life”, and I’m willing to give it a chance. So I started keeping notes as I read it.
Chapter 1: Don’t try
The basic premise is that most self-improvement efforts are too vague or too generic to be helpful. They are all about getting more, doing more, having more success, and that the real key to doing so is self-improvement. But Manson argues:
Self-improvement and success often occur together. But that doesn’t necessarily mean they’re the same thing.
And so people end up focusing on trying to achieve self-actualization in every aspect of their life, every achievement possible.
The key to a good life is not giving a fck about more; it’s giving a fck about less, giving a fck about only what is true and immediate and important. […] Most of us struggle throughout our lives by giving too many fcks in situations where fcks do not deserve to be given. We give too many fcks about the rude gas station attendant who gave us our change in nickels. We give too many fcks when a show we liked was canceled on TV. We give too many fcks when our coworkers don’t bother asking us about our awesome weekend.
Oversimplifying somewhat, I would summarize the argument as simply you’re going to get annoyed about SOMETHING, so why not make sure that the something you are annoyed about is worth it. In other words, don’t sweat the small stuff, only sweat the big stuff you care about.
Hardly revolutionary.
Chapter 2: Happiness is a problem
The argument is that happiness is not a “solvable equation”. You find happiness by loving the struggle. If pain of some sort is inevitable, and you accept that, focus on accepting which pain is worth your while. And the journey is the source of happiness, not the destination.
Also known as “Do what you love and you’ll never work a day in your life.”
But Manson adds a small twist about finding problems you like to solve (i.e. what you love).
He then goes off on a long BS rant about links between Millennials, entitlement, and social media. Yawn. It was also said about every generation before this one. “The kids today…with their long hair, their rock and roll, their lack of responsibility…”. He then equates all of it to relying on denial or victim mentality, and thus the reason none of them can “change”. If someone wants to see an entitled summary of a narcissistic a-hole of epic proportions, his summary of his own adolescence and how his parents were to blame would rank up there among the all-time greats. Double yawn.
I did like one quote near the end:
Who you are is defined by what you’re willing to struggle for.
Not quite “I have a dream”, or, “I think therefore I am”, but there’s at least something in it.
Chapter 3: You are not special
This chapter is mostly meaningless self-aggrandizing about his rough childhood (spoiler alert: it wasn’t as “traumatic” shit as he thinks) to come to the conclusion that you can’t be special in every area, and maybe average in some or even the majority is okay.
Chapter 4: The value of suffering
About this point in the book, I’m starting to realize that he has some nuggets of ideas in each chapter, but most of his evidence tends to prove the exact opposite of what he’s trying to say. For example, his grand example of measuring things wrong is Pete Best being kicked out of the Beatles and the statement “I’m happier than I would have been with the Beatles.” Ignoring the self-rationalization process involved in any kind of statement like that, there’s absolutely no basis to know even if it would be objectively true. Yet instead of pointing out the fallacy of any such “what if / road not taken” comparison, i.e., the entire basis for regret, Manson uses it to prove that not all suffering is bad. Okaaaay.
He introduces the common concept of self-awareness being like an onion with layers:
What are emotions?
Why do we feel certain emotions?
Why do I feel that emotion and how am I judging things?
But then he does nothing really with it. He does summarize true self-improvement as being really about prioritizing better values for ourselves. Now THAT’S an interesting premise. It isn’t quite the same as people just simply committing to service to others as a panacea for all that is ailing you, but rather a way of focusing on the types of priorities you choose. Of course, he does settle for complaining about material things or pursuing pleasure, but the idea was interesting.
Chapter 5: You are always choosing
I liked the opening premise. He gives an example of being forced to run a marathon vs. choosing to run a marathon, and often the act of “choice” determines what your outcome is like (pain or joy). I much prefer Kottler’s “Change” treatment of a similar issue which is that how you talk to yourself during trauma oftens determines how you process it later, but okay, it’s pop-psych here, not true psych. Where Manson goes off the rails is his interpretation of blame, choice, and responsibility.
Basically he argues that we don’t always control what happens to us, but that we can control how we interpret it and how we respond. Except every psychologist knows that statement is simply not true. Some of us have serious issues, we’re not all self-aware and rational creatures, so saying we don’t respond like Pavlovian dogs to some stimuli doesn’t make it true. But he wants to use it to say while we are “responsible” for our problems, we are not “to blame” / “at fault” for our problems.
I can’t help but be reminded of the classic comedy skit by David Frye called “Richard Nixon – A Fantasy”. He does voices for all the characters, and as Nixon, he gives a press conference explaining the difference between being responsible and to blame. He says, “Let me be perfectly clear. I am responsible, but not to blame. Let me explain the difference. Those who are to blame, go to jail; those who are responsible, do not.”
About this point, just over 50% of the way through the book, I would probably have chucked it if I wasn’t reading it for a reading challenge. And as I noted above, there are a few nuggets here and there that are interesting ideas.
Chapter 6: You’re wrong about everything (but so am I)
This chapter is badly named, not surprisingly, but I like the idea that many people like to live in a “known” world, even if painful, believing something negative rather than hope for something else that is totally uncertain and requires work to achieve. Often this shows up as “unrealized potential” — the would-be rock star who never tries too hard, or the writer that never writes. It’s easier to think of yourself as having the potential to be great than risk it all and fail. And so he concludes that certainty is the enemy of growth.
See? This is what I mean. Amidst all the fucks and shits in the text, suddenly he finds an acorn of value like a blind squirrel.
Except, then he goes off the rails again. He uses it to argue that what is holding people back is fear (true, obviously) and that it is fear of challenging their own view of themself. So, the solution for him is to redefine yourself as simply as possible so that you’re not trying to challenge a complex view. Yep, crickets. Chirping in the night while time passes.
Chapter 7: Failure is the way forward
Don’t be afraid of failure, failure leads to growth, growth leads to goodness, goodness defeats the dark side of the force, a temptation you must avoid, hmm, if to face Vader you must. Or something, I don’t know, he lost me in his own shitstorm story. I don’t know if he was smoking something or watching Empire Strikes Back with Yoda too much, but he kinda goes off on a tangent.
When he eventually emerges, he has some interesting thoughts about how we tend to think of a linear process of “motivation” leading to “action” which leads to “results”. And so we often look for inspiration or motivation to get ourselves going, to start “acting”. But he notes that sometimes the action leads to an outcome or interim result that will actually give us the motivation we need. Cause and effect, reversed in a way. If this sounds vaguely familiar, think back to every Nike ad you’ve seen for the last 20 years. “Just do it”.
It’s one of the stupidest ideas on the planet. Here’s a wake-up call — if you COULD just “do it”, you would have already done it and you wouldn’t need a fucking book. If you haven’t, maybe there’s something holding you back. And it ain’t motivation, asshat. Maybe it’s fear, but more likely it’s way more complicated than that. But no worries, try it anyway. Uh huh. Sure Mark, no problem. Everyone will get right on it, now that you’ve opened them up to the most obvious idea on the planet.
Chapter 8: The importance of saying no
I kept wondering if Marie Kondo read this book before she came up with her joy theory. If it doesn’t give you joy, get rid of it. Or in Manson’s words:
The point is this: we all must give a fuck about something, in order to value something. And to value something, we must reject what is not that something. To value X, we must reject non-X.
Wow, I read all of the previous crap to get to this? Man, I better get some sort of badge for this.
Chapter 9: …And then you die
Yep, that’s it. Or it could be called “…and then the book ends”.
Summary
Did you ever see the movie City Slickers with Billy Crystal? He goes off to be a cowboy for a vacation, and Jack Palance tells him that he has to find his “one thing” that is his purpose in life. The single thing, in Manson’s world, that you give a fuck about if you only had one fuck to give. And you could be happy if you organized your life and your goals around that one thing while letting go of everything else that didn’t bring you joy or closer to that joy.
Or you could just summarize it as “Don’t sweat the small stuff and it’s all small stuff”.
There ain’t much else there. Even if it is written in more Millenial vernacular than Boomer examples.
This is the annual observer’s guide published by the Royal Astronomical Society of Canada.
What I Liked
Each year, the Observer’s Guide is produced and sold to amateur and professional astronomers across North America, and those astronomers vary considerably in their capacity and interests. It’s hard to serve any “one group”, but as I am at the intro stage to the hobby, I’ll review from that perspective. Some highlights include:
List of observatories, star parties, planetaria (pp 11-14);
Observable satellites of the planets (pp 25-26);
Observing artificial satellites (p 38);
Overview of filters (pp 64-67);
Deep-sky observing hints by Alan Dyer (pp 85-87);
Lunar observing (pp 158-161);
The brightest stars (pp 274-283, 285); and,
The deep sky (pp 307-337).
Of course, it also has the key reference materials:
The Moon (pp 148-157);
The Sun (pp 184-193);
Dwarf and minor planets (pp 241-251); and,
Double and multiple stars (pp 291-294, 296-297).
And it has specific highlights for the year:
The Sky month-by-month (pp 94-121);
Times of sunrise and sunset for 2019 (pp 205-207);
2019 transit of Mercury (pp 139-143);
The planets in 2019 (pp 211-229); and,
Comets in 2019 (p 264).
I’m happy too that some of the errors in URLs published last year have been corrected.
What I Didn’t Like
I still find the pages on telescope exit pupils (pp 50-53) to be incredibly dense. I keep meaning to find a more basic set of explanations online for it, but never get around to it. I would add the next section on magnification and contrast in deep sky observing (pp 54-57) as equally confusing. I have to believe that dense text can somehow be explained more easily to the newbie into some basic guidelines for common scopes and ages of users. Equally, I’m not thrilled with the astrophotography section (pp 91-93) which still shows as the “big cameras” are best, in the same way that many photography websites ten years ago suggested the professionals would never go digital. There is an emerging market for people sharing prime shots they take with their smartphones — souvenir quality shots, not NASA shots — and it is almost completely ignored by the section (grudgingly it says “even cell phones”). I also find that the economic bias of last year towards higher end binoculars and scopes continues. But those issues are mostly me just being picky — they aren’t enough to reduce the overall rating.
The Bottom Line
Excellent edition for the year.
My Rating
🐸🐸🐸🐸🐸 – 5/5 Excellent
Disclosure
While I have no link to the publication, its content, or its editors, I am a member of the astronomy association (RASC) that produced it.
Kottler reflects on the literature and personal experiences as a psychologist about the elements that lead people to not only make changes in their life but also sustain those changes over the long-term
What I Liked
I had the pleasure of hearing Kottler speak as an honoured guest at my wife’s university graduation ceremony, and he intrigued me enough on the subject of “change” — what we know and what we don’t know — that I bought his book. It was the perfect book for me at this point in my life, as I’ve been wanting to make a significant change that has been holding me back for at least 30 years. I’m great at the day to day goal-setting stuff, but I needed to understand large scale change on a deeper level, and this book was ideal for that education.
At the beginning, I was struck by a central question — when does an alteration in attitudes, beliefs, behaviour, thinking, or feeling “count” as change, and how long does it have to last in order to qualify? In shorter terms, when does a temporary change become permanent and sustainable? Chapter 2 was an eye-opener — hidden benefits from my current approach that resist change. Not the obvious ones but more internal ones that might even seem like positive traits in someone (being strong, standing up for oneself disguising some issues with temper, for instance). And some baby step coping techniques. Chapter 3 dealt more with the conditions that allow you to transition from temporary to permanent change, almost pre-conditions in some cases.
Other chapters were relatively straight-forward: the power of story-telling (chapter 4); hitting bottom in various forms (chapter 5); how you react to trauma and whether it can be a positive catalyst (chapter 6); the limits to psychotherapy (chapter 7); change through physical travel or spiritual journeys (chapter 8); moments of clarity (chapter 9); and resolving conflicts in relationships (chapter 13). The last chapter — Why Changes Don’t Often Last (Chapter 14) — was one that I was most looking forward in the book, and while he goes into various spins and examples, most of it seems to come down to varying forms of fear. It certainly did for me, and I find the chapter fantastic for presenting it quite concisely. In the end, the price of the book is worth it just to get the 7 pages at the end, if you have time for nothing else (308-315).
I managed to use it create a six-part “to do” list / game plan for the change that I’ve been wanting to make, and for the first time in my life, I’m doing it. I’m six months in and it seems to be holding. It’ll take another 18 months to “finish”, but the book helped me get there. Onward to the journey!
What I Didn’t Like
Several chapters didn’t really sing as well as the rest. Being happy (chapter 11) and transformation while helping others (12) were relatively bland, and a chapter on the importance of social capital (chapter 10) seemed almost like an afterthought.
The Bottom Line
It gave me the courage to get unstuck after 30 years.
This is the annual observer’s guide published by the Royal Astronomical Society of Canada.
What I Liked
One of the most obvious challenges for an Observer’s Guide of this kind is balancing the needs of newbies and moderate amateurs with the needs of advanced astronomers, photographers, and outright astro-physicists. However, I’m on the newer end of the spectrum, and I found the typical wealth of information such as using the handbook for teaching purposes and resources (p 17); observable satellites (p 25); filters (p 64); deep-sky observing hints (p 85); the sky month by month; and overviews on planets, dwarf planets, satellites, the sun, and various star options before getting to the deep-sky lists (which could benefit from better presentation). However, I think my favourite section was on the Moon. The entire handbook is “made” just having the info from Bruce McCurdy on lunar observing starting on page 158 as it is perfect for me. Relative shifts per day (p 158), Canadian content (p 160), the Hadley Rille (p 161), and the lunar certificate (p 161) are all great elements for me to try to see in the coming year.
What I Didn’t Like
I was surprised to see a number of errors in included URLs. While it is hard to stay evergreen, these were links that had not changed from last year and when I went back to the RASC website, the links worked just fine. Somehow they got edited in publication and never tested. Even links to the actual RASC website were wrong. There are also some highly technical pages on magnification, telescope parameters, night myopia, and exit pupils, and while correct, they are presented so densely that re-reading them left me more confused than informed. Finally, there is a strong economic bias that creeps into the texts in a few places — on binoculars, the only ones they mention as being good cost around $1500, and when talking about using Schmidt-Cassegrain scopes (often bought as they are quite portable), recommends just putting it in your backyard observatory, assuming of course you have the money to have a house with a backyard with room and resources to build an observatory. In addition, there are numerous editing choices made throughout the text such as lists sorted by one variable instead of by one that might aid organization. I’ve already found myself copying lists from previous years online into spreadsheets so I can resort them into a more usable format.
The Bottom Line
Solid guide but some editorial and tone issues throughout.