The Subtle Art of Not Giving a F_ck

who came to me perplexed by their own VCR questions:
“How do I apply for a job?” or “How do I tell this guy I want
to be his girlfriend?” and the like.
During the first couple years I worked for myself, entire
weeks would go by without my accomplishing much, for no
other reason than that I was anxious and stressed about
what I had to do, and it was too easy to put everything off. I
quickly learned, though, that forcing myself to do
something, even the most menial of tasks, quickly made the
larger tasks seem much easier. If I had to redesign an entire
website, I’d force myself to sit down and would say, “Okay,
I’ll just design the header right now.” But after the header
was done, I’d find myself moving on to other parts of the
site. And before I knew it, I’d be energized and engaged in
the project.
The author Tim Ferriss relates a story he once heard
about a novelist who had written over seventy novels.
Someone asked the novelist how he was able to write so
consistently and remain inspired and motivated. He replied,
“Two hundred crappy words per day, that’s it.” The idea was
that if he forced himself to write two hundred crappy words,
more often than not the act of writing would inspire him;
and before he knew it, he’d have thousands of words down
on the page.
If we follow the “do something” principle, failure feels
unimportant. When the standard of success becomes
merely acting—when any result is regarded as progress and
important, when inspiration is seen as a reward rather than
a prerequisite—we propel ourselves ahead. We feel free to
fail, and that failure moves us forward.
The “do something” principle not only helps us overcome
procrastination, but it’s also the process by which we adopt
new values. If you’re in the midst of an existential shitstorm
and everything feels meaningless—if all the ways you used
to measure yourself have come up short and you have no
idea what’s next, if you know that you’ve been hurting