I read this book while going through a relatively stressful period of time in my senior year of high school. Day after day, I was seemingly faced with an endless barrage of school work, university applications, and extra-curricular responsibilities. Mark Manson's The Subtle Art of Not Giving a F*ck didn't make any of my problems go away, but it did help me clear out some toxic thoughts I was having.
To me, the most interesting topic in this book is beliefs. According to Manson, we are the architects of our own beliefs, and thus they are often irrational. The brain is imperfect—it forgets, misinterprets, and fabricates its own details. But it also subconsciously pieces together memories to form beliefs. Once developed, we then interpret new experiences that align with these beliefs as proof of our righteousness and get angry at everything else.
From this hypothesis we can draw several insightful conclusions. For instance, if you're scared of what others think about you, it is probably a reflection of the negative things you think about yourself. The key is to recognizing your beliefs through introspection, figure out where they came from, and decide whether to change them.
This book has also made me more comfortable with death. Manson says that life will be full of suffering no matter what you do, but because of societal conventions, many people are not fighting the battles they truly want to be fighting. Finding non-idiomatic hills to die on is a continuous process for me, and it also relates to recognizing and restructuring beliefs. Acknowledging that basically all of my beliefs are stupid and irrational to some extent and I just don't realize it helps to keep me humble and focus on personal growth.
This is the only self help-book I ever see myself recommending to others, and I would be surprised and delighted if I ever come across a book that tops this one.
I've bumped the rating on this book up several times over the years. Manson's takes on belief and identity have been an important North Star for me over the past few years. Rooting out my own irrational beliefs has been a continual and very much unfinished process, but I hope (and think) it helps make me a better person.
Manson also states that the more something threatens your identity, the more you tend to avoid it. Thus keeping your identity small opens you up to more experiences and keeps you humble. I think this advice has unlocked experiences I otherwise would not have experienced and given me memories I would not have otherwise had. For that I am grateful.
Finally, as an amendment to the statement I made about this being the only self-help book I would recommend, there are 2 more I would recommend now: Four Thousand Weeks and Atomic Habits.