Mark Manson - The Subtle Art of Not Giving a F__k (2016, HarperOne) - libgen.li

It’s the backwards law again: the more you try to be certain about
something, the more uncertain and insecure you will feel.
But the converse is true as well: the more you embrace being uncertain
and not knowing, the more comfortable you will feel in knowing what you
don’t know.
Uncertainty removes our judgments of others; it preempts the unnecessary
stereotyping and biases that we otherwise feel when we see somebody on
TV, in the office, or on the street. Uncertainty also relieves us of our judgment
of ourselves. We don’t know if we’re lovable or not; we don’t know how
attractive we are; we don’t know how successful we could potentially
become. The only way to achieve these things is to remain uncertain of them
and be open to finding them out through experience.
Uncertainty is the root of all progress and all growth. As the old adage
goes, the man who believes he knows everything learns nothing. We cannot
learn anything without first not knowing something. The more we admit we
do not know, the more opportunities we gain to learn.
Our values are imperfect and incomplete, and to assume that they are
perfect and complete is to put us in a dangerously dogmatic mindset that
breeds entitlement and avoids responsibility. The only way to solve our
problems is to first admit that our actions and beliefs up to this point have
been wrong and are not working.
This openness to being wrong must exist for any real change or growth to
take place.
Before we can look at our values and prioritizations and change them into
better, healthier ones, we must first become uncertain of our current values.
We must intellectually strip them away, see their faults and biases, see how
they don’t fit in with much of the rest of the world, to stare our own
ignorance in the face and concede, because our own ignorance is greater than
us all.
Manson’s Law of Avoidance
Chances are you’ve heard some form of Parkinson’s law: “Work expands so
as to fill up the time available for its completion.”
You’ve also undoubtedly heard of Murphy’s law: “Whatever can go
wrong will go wrong.”