The Subtle Art of Not Giving a F_ck

Many people, when they feel some form of pain or anger
or sadness, drop everything and attend to numbing out
whatever they’re feeling. Their goal is to get back to
“feeling good” again as quickly as possible, even if that
means substances or deluding themselves or returning to
their shitty values.
Learn to sustain the pain you’ve chosen. When you
choose a new value, you are choosing to introduce a new
form of pain into your life. Relish it. Savor it. Welcome it with
open arms. Then act despite it.
I won’t lie: this is going to feel impossibly hard at first.
But you can start simple. You’re going to feel as though you
don’t know what to do. But we’ve discussed this: you don’t
know anything. Even when you think you do, you really
don’t know what the fuck you’re doing. So really, what is
there to lose?
Life is about not knowing and then doing something
anyway. All of life is like this. It never changes. Even when
you’re happy. Even when you’re farting fairy dust. Even
when you win the lottery and buy a small fleet of Jet Skis,
you still won’t know what the hell you’re doing. Don’t ever
forget that. And don’t ever be afraid of that.
The “Do Something” Principle
In 2008, after holding down a day job for all of six weeks, I
gave up on the whole job thing to pursue an online
business. At the time, I had absolutely no clue what I was
doing, but I figured if I was going to be broke and miserable,
I might as well be while working on my own terms. And at
that time, all I seemed to really care about was chasing
girls. So fuck it, I decided to start a blog about my crazy
dating life.
That first morning that I woke up self-employed, terror
quickly consumed me. I found myself sitting with my laptop
and realized, for the first time, that I was entirely