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

This often means giving up some grandiose ideas about yourself: that
you’re uniquely intelligent, or spectacularly talented, or intimidatingly
attractive, or especially victimized in ways other people could never
imagine. This means giving up your sense of entitlement and your belief that
you’re somehow owed something by this world. This means giving up the
supply of emotional highs that you’ve been sustaining yourself on for years.
Like a junkie giving up the needle, you’re going to go through withdrawal
when you start giving these things up. But you’ll come out the other side so
much better.
How to Be a Little Less Certain of Yourself
Questioning ourselves and doubting our own thoughts and beliefs is one of
the hardest skills to develop. But it can be done. Here are some questions
that will help you breed a little more uncertainty in your life.
Question #1: What if I’m wrong?
A friend of mine recently got engaged to be married. The guy who
proposed to her is pretty solid. He doesn’t drink. He doesn’t hit her or
mistreat her. He’s friendly and has a good job.
But since the engagement, my friend’s brother has been admonishing her
nonstop about her immature life choices, warning her that she’s going to hurt
herself with this guy, that she’s making a mistake, that she’s being
irresponsible. And whenever my friend asks her brother, “What is your
problem? Why does this bother you so much?” he acts as though there is no
problem, that nothing about the engagement bothers him, that he’s just trying
to be helpful and look out for his little sister.
But it’s clear that something does bother him. Perhaps it’s his own
insecurities about getting married. Perhaps it’s a sibling rivalry thing.
Perhaps it’s jealousy. Perhaps he’s just so caught up in his own victimhood
that he doesn’t know how to show happiness for others without trying to
make them feel miserable first.
As a general rule, we’re all the world’s worst observers of ourselves.
When we’re angry, or jealous, or upset, we’re oftentimes the last ones to
figure it out. And the only way to figure it out is to put cracks in our armor of
certainty by consistently questioning how wrong we might be about
ourselves.