miguel-se7

The opposite of happiness is not anger or sadness. If you’re angry or sad, [...] That means something still matters. That means you still have hope. No, the opposite of happiness is hopelessness, an endless grey horizon of resignation and indifference.

Everything is F*cked: a Book About Hope by Mark Manson is a weird self help book, it is about learning to be an adult, learning to give up your childlike values and moving forward towards virtue. Manson argues that we have abandoned our search of virtue and replaced it with a toxic pursuit of happiness, creating alongside it a world of diversions that give us the impression of freedom but instead just end up making us feel imprisoned.

At times the book is excellent, providing interesting insights backed by academic research, expanding on the works of philosophers and writers (Including: Nietzsche, Kant, the Stoics, Freud, Taleb...). I found myself re-reading some of the most interesting points, as well as diving into the cited works to get a better grasp on the topic.

However, more often than not the book falls into Manson's more vulgar style, that seems to be used more for shock rather than to provide something useful to the reader, during these parts I felt compelled to just throw the book away and go read something else.

The books feels very loosely tied together, which is understandable when you realize that plenty of the material was taken from his blog and edited a bit to fit into the book format.

If this is your first time reading Manson, I would advise you to go with his previous book The subtle Art of Not Giving a F*ck first. If you are not into Manson's writing style but find the topics interesting, you should try reading something from the Stoics, Nassim Nicholas Taleb's Skin in the Game or maybe 12 Rules for Life by Jordan Peterson.

See below for some of my favorite quotes from this book:

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