Mark Manson Quotes

At some point, most of us reach a place where we're afraid to fail, where we instinctively avoid failure and stick only to what is placed in front of us or only what we're already good at.This confines us and stifles us. We can be truly successful only at something we're willing to fail at. If we're unwilling to fail, then we're unwilling to succeed. ~ Mark Manson

People declare themselves experts, entrepreneurs, inventors, innovators, mavericks, and coaches without any real-life experience. And they do this not because they actually think they are greater than everybody else; they do it because they feel that they need to be great to be accepted in a world that broadcasts only the extraordinary. Our ~ Mark Manson

YOUR values determine your behavior, not what you think she wants, not what you think others want, but what is best for you and best for the relationship. ~ Mark Manson

Values underlie everything we are and do. If what we value is unhelpful, if what we consider success/failure is poorly chosen, then everything based upon those values - the thoughts, the emotions, the day-to-day feelings - will all be out of whack. Everything we think and feel about a situation ultimately comes back to how valuable we perceive it to be. Most ~ Mark Manson

No truly happy person feels the need to stand in front of a mirror and recite that she's happy. She just is. ~ Mark Manson

You get anxious about confronting somebody in your life. That anxiety cripples you and you start wondering why you're so anxious. Now you're becoming anxious about being anxious. Oh no! Doubly anxious! Now you're anxious about your anxiety, which is causing more anxiety. Quick, where's the whiskey?
Or let's say you have an anger problem. You get pissed off at the stupidest, most inane stuff, and
you have no idea why. And the fact that you get pissed off so easily starts to piss you off even more.
And then, in your petty rage, you realize that being angry all the time makes you a shallow and mean person, and you hate this; you hate it so much that you get angry at yourself. Now look at you: you're angry at yourself getting angry about being angry. Fuck you, wall. Here, have a fist.
Or you're so worried about doing the right thing all the time that you become worried about how much you're worrying. Or you feel so guilty for every mistake you make that you begin to feel guilty about how guilty you're feeling. Or you get sad and alone so often that it makes you feel even more sad and alone just thinking about it.
..Welcome to the feedback loop from hell. ~ Mark Manson

There is no correct dogma or perfect ideology. There is only what your experience has shown you to be right for you - and even then, that experience is probably somewhat wrong too. And because you and I and everybody else all have differing needs and personal histories and life circumstances, we will all inevitably come to different "correct" answers about what our lives mean and how they should be lived. ~ Mark Manson

Happiness is a constant work-in-progress, because solving problems is a constant work-in-progress - the solutions to today's problems will lay the foundation for tomorrow's problems, and so on. True happiness occurs only when you find the problems you enjoy having and enjoy solving. Sometimes ~ Mark Manson

I wanted the reward and not the struggle. I wanted the result and not the process. I was in love not with the fight but only the victory.
And life doesn't work that way. ~ Mark Manson

When our highest priority is to always make ourselves feel good, or to always make our partner feel good, then nobody ends up feeling good. And our relationship falls apart without our even knowing it. Without conflict, there can be no trust. Conflict exists to show us who is there for us unconditionally and who is just there for the benefits. No one trusts a yes-man. If Disappointment Panda were here, he'd tell you that the pain in our relationship is necessary to cement our trust in each other and produce greater intimacy. ~ Mark Manson

Our culture today confuses great attention with great success, assuming them to be the same thing, but they are not. You are great, already. Whether you realize it or not. Whether anybody else realizes it or not. And it's not because you launched an iPhone app, or finished school a year early, or bought yourself a sweet ass boat. These things do not define greatness. You are already great because in the face of endless confusion and certain death, you continue to choose what to give a fuck about and what not to. ~ Mark Manson

Life is essentially an endless series of problems. The solution to one problem is merely the creation of another. ~ Mark Manson

And I don't care how scientific you think you are or how many letters you have after your name, you're one of us, bucko. You're a crazy Feeling Brain-piloted meat robot just like the rest of us. ~ Mark Manson

The problem here is that most people who get caught cheating apologize and give the 'It will never happen again' spiel and that's that, as if penises fell into various orifices completely by accident. Many cheatees accept this response at face value, and don't question the values and fucks given by their partner (pun totally intended); they don't ask themselves whether those values and fucks make their partner a good person to stay with. They're so concerned with holding on to their relationship that they fail to recognize that it's become a black hole consuming their self respect.

If people cheat, it's because something other than the relationship is more important to them. It may be power over others. It may be validation through sex. It may be giving in to their own impulses. Whatever it is, it's clear that the cheater's values are not aligned in a way to support a healthy relationship. And if the cheater doesn't admit this or come to terms with it, if he just gives the old 'I don't know what I was thinking; I was stressed out and drunk and she was there' response, then he lacks the serious self-awareness necessary to solve any relationship problems. ~ Mark Manson

We can be truly successful only at things we are willing to fail at. ~ Mark Manson

If people cheat, it's because something other than the relationship is more important to them. It may be power over others. It may be validation through sex. It may be giving in to their own impulses. ~ Mark Manson

The common cultural narratives would tell me that I somehow failed myself, that I'm a quitter or a loser, that I just didn't "have it," that I gave up on my dream and that maybe I let myself succumb to the pressures of society. But the truth is far less interesting than any of these explanations. The truth is, I thought I wanted something, but it turns out I didn't. End of story. ~ Mark Manson

Pleasure is a false god. Research shows that people who focus their energy on superficial pleasures end up more anxious, more emotionally unstable, and more depressed. Pleasure is the most superficial form of life satisfaction and therefore the easiest to obtain and the easiest to lose. But pleasure, while necessary in life (in certain doses), isn't, by itself, sufficient. Pleasure is not the cause of happiness; rather, it is the effect. ~ Mark Manson

You are going to be incompatible with most ~ Mark Manson

Happiness comes from solving problems. [...] Happiness is a constant work-in-progress. The solutions to today's problems will lay the foundation for tomorrow's problems. ~ Mark Manson

Because when you give too many fucks - when you give a fuck about everyone and everything - you will feel that you're perpetually entitled to be comfortable and happy at all times, that everything is supposed to be just exactly the fucking way you want it to be. This is a sickness. And it will eat you alive. You will see every adversity as an injustice, every challenge as a failure, every inconvenience as a personal slight, every disagreement as a betrayal. ~ Mark Manson

We all love to take responsibility for success and happiness. Hell, we often fight over who gets to be responsible for success and happiness. But taking responsibility for our problems is far more important, because that's where the real learning comes from. That's where the real-life improvement comes from. To ~ Mark Manson

Unhealthy love is based on two people trying to escape their problems through their emotions for each other - in other words, they're using each other as an escape. Healthy love is based on two people acknowledging and addressing their own problems with each other's support. ~ Mark Manson

That my most important values are honesty, empathy, and intellectual curiosity. That I'm unwilling to tolerate women who don't make me happy, no matter how hot they are. ~ Mark Manson

Because here's something that's weird but true: we don't actually know what a positive or negative experience is. Some of the most difficult and stressful moments of our lives also end up being the most formative and motivating. Some of the best and most gratifying experiences of our lives are also the most distracting and demotivating. Don't trust your conception of positive/negative experiences. All that we know for certain is what hurts in the moment and what doesn't. And that's not worth much. Just ~ Mark Manson

What determines your success isn't, "What do you want to enjoy?" the relevant question is, "What pain do you want to sustain? ~ Mark Manson

But the truth is far less interesting than any of these explanations. The truth is, I thought I wanted something, but it turns out I didn't. End of story. I wanted the reward and not the struggle. I wanted the result and not the process. I was in love with not the fight but only the victory. And ~ Mark Manson

Democracy can exist only when you are willing to tolerate views that oppose your own, when you're willing to give up some things you might want for the sake of a safe and healthy community, when you're willing to compromise and accept that sometimes things don't go your way. ~ Mark Manson

That's simply reality: if it feels like it's you versus the world, chances are it's really just you versus yourself. ~ Mark Manson

Because here's the thing that's wrong with all of the "How to Be Happy" shit that's been shared eight million times on Facebook in the past few years - here's what nobody realizes about all of this crap: The desire for more positive experience is itself a negative experience. And, paradoxically, the acceptance of one's negative experience is itself a positive experience. This is a total mind-fuck. So I'll give you a minute to unpretzel your brain and maybe read that again: Wanting positive experience is a negative experience; accepting negative experience is a positive experience. It's what the philosopher Alan Watts used to refer to as "the backwards law" - the idea that the more you pursue feeling better all the time, the less satisfied you become, as pursuing something only reinforces the fact that you lack it in the first place. The ~ Mark Manson

you can't build a better mind without challenging your own beliefs and assumptions ~ Mark Manson

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. ~ Mark Manson

Yet, in a bizarre, backwards way, death is the light by which the shadow of all of life's meaning is measured. Without death, everything would feel inconsequential, all experience arbitrary, all metrics and values suddenly zero. ~ Mark Manson

Judges don't get to choose their cases. When a case goes to court, the judge assigned to it did not commit the crime, was not a witness to the crime, and was not affected by the crime, but he or she is still responsible for the crime. The judge must then choose the consequences; he or she must identify the metric against which the crime will be measured and make sure that the chosen metric is carried out. We ~ Mark Manson

Fame and success didn't make him a better person. Nor was it by becoming a better person that he became famous and successful. ~ Mark Manson

What is objectively true about your situation is not as important as how you come to see the situation, how you choose to measure it and value it. ~ Mark Manson

This is the most simple and basic component of life: our struggles determine our successes. ~ Mark Manson

We are actually often happier with less. When we're overloaded with opportunities and options, we suffer from what psychologists refer to as the paradox of choice. Basically, the more options we're given, the less satisfied we become with whatever we choose, because we're aware of all the other options we're potentially forfeiting. ~ Mark Manson

There's a saying in Texas: "The smallest dog barks the loudest." A confident man doesn't feel a need to prove that he's confident. A rich woman doesn't feel a need to convince anybody that she's rich. ~ Mark Manson

To be happy we need something to solve. Happiness is therefore a form of action; ~ Mark Manson

Who you are is defined by the values you are willing to struggle for. ~ Mark Manson

The more people there are who proclaim themselves victims over tiny
infractions, the harder it becomes to see who the real victims actually are. ~ Mark Manson. “The Subtle Art Of Not Giving A F*ck.”

What you consider 'friendship' is really just your constant attempts to impress people. ~ Mark Manson

If the pursuit of happiness pulls us all back into childishness, then fake freedom conspires to keep us there. Because freedom is not having more brands of cereal to choose from, or more beach vacations to take selfies on, or more satellite channels to fall asleep to. That is variety. And in a vacuum, variety is meaningless. If you are trapped by insecurity, stymied by doubt, and hamstrung by intolerance, you can have all the variety in the world. But you are not free. ~ Mark Manson

Without conflict, there can be no trust. Conflict exists to show us who is there for us unconditionally and who is just there for the benefits. (p.183) ~ Mark Manson

Often the only difference between a problem being painful or being powerful is a sense that we chose it, and that we are responsible for it. We don't always control what happens to us. But we always control how we interpret what happens to us, as well as how we respond. ~ Mark Manson

Why don't we do things we know we should do? Because we don't feel like it. Every problem of self-control is not a problem of information or discipline or reason, but, rather, of emotion. Self-control is an emotional problem. Laziness is an emotional problem. Procrastination is an emotional problem. Underachievement is an emotional problem. Impulsiveness is an emotional problem. This sucks, because emotional problems are much harder to deal with than logical ones. ~ Mark Manson

Despite dreaming about making a living through his art, the real potential of becoming An Artist Nobody Likes was far, far scarier than remaining An Artist Nobody's Heard Of. At least he was comfortable with and used to being An Artist Nobody's Heard Of. ~ Mark Manson

Everything comes with an inherent sacrifice – whatever makes us feel good will also inevitably make us feel bad. What we gain is also what we lose. What creates our positive experiences will define our negative experiences. ~ Mark Manson

If you feel okay only when life is happy and easy-breezy-beautiful Cover-Girl, then guess what? You are not free. <...> You are the prisoner of your own indulgences, enslaved by your own intolerance, crippled by your own emotional weakness. You will constantly feel a need for some external comfort or validation that may or may not ever come ~ Mark Manson

If you feel crappy, it's because that's your brain telling you that there's a problem unaddressed or an issue unresolved. In other words, negative emotions are a call to action. When you feel them, it's because you're supposed to do something. Positive emotions, on the other hand, are rewards for taking proper action. When you feel them, life seems simple and there is nothing else to do but enjoy it. Then like everything else, positive emotions go away, because more problems inevitably emerge. ~ Mark Manson

Acts of love are valid only if they're performed without conditions or expectations. ~ Mark Manson

In the nineteenth century, Emile Durkheim, the founder of sociology and an early pioneer of the social sciences, ran a thought experiment in one of his books: What if there were no crime? What if there emerged a society where everyone was perfectly respectful and nonviolent and everyone was equal? What if no one lied or hurt each other? What if corruption did not exist? What would happen? Would conflict cease? Would stress evaporate? Would everyone frolic in fields picking daises and singing the "Hallelujah" chorus from Handel's Messiah?
Durkheim said no, that in fact the opposite would happen. He suggested that the more comfortable and ethical a society became, the more that small indiscretions would become magnified in our minds. If everyone stopped killing each other, we wouldn't necessarily feel good about it. We'd just get equally upset about the more minor stuff.
Developmental psychology has long argued something similar: that protecting people from problems or adversity doesn't make them happier or more secure; it makes them more easily insecure. A young person who has been sheltered form dealing with any challenges or injustices growing up will come to find the slightest inconveniences of adult life intolerable, and will have the childish public meltdown to prove it. ~ Mark Manson

Certainty is the enemy of growth. ~ Mark Manson

If I'm ever able to hope for nothing, it will be for the simple reason that I'm already with you. ~ Mark Manson

We are defined by what we choose to reject. And if we reject nothing we essentially have no identity at all ~ Mark Manson

Our most radical changes in perspective often happen at the tail end of our worst moments. ~ Mark Manson

Everybody on this planet shares a handful of universal emotional realities: ambition, shame, alienation, loneliness, achievement, regret, hardship, friendship, love, heartbreak. We've all experienced it. The facts change, the feelings are the same. ~ Mark Manson

Psychologists sometimes refer to this concept as the 'hedonic treadmill': the idea that we're always working hard to change our life situation, but we actually never feel very different. ~ Mark Manson

Like a surgeon's scalpel, hope can save a life, and hope can take a life. It can uplift us, and it can destroy us. Just as there are healthy and damaging forms of confidence, and healthy and damaging forms of love, there are also healthy and damaging forms of hope. And the difference between the two is not always clear. ~ Mark Manson

Today's tyranny is achieved by flooding people with so much diversion, so much bullshit information and frivolous distraction, that they are unable to make smart commitments. ~ Mark Manson

It's worth remembering that for any change to happen in your life, you must be wrong about something. If you're sitting there, miserable day after day, then that means you're already wrong about something major in your life, and until you're able to question yourself to find it, nothing will change. ~ Mark Manson

I recently read a fabulous blog by a writer named Mark Manson, who said that the secret to finding your purpose in life is to answer this question in total honesty: What's your favorite flavor of shit sandwich? ~ Elizabeth Gilbert

Many people measure their self-worth based on how much money they make... once one is able to provide for basic physical needs (food shelter, and so on), the correlation between happiness and worldly success quickly approaches zero. ~ Mark Manson

To not give a fuck about adversity, you must first give a fuck about something more important than adversity. Imagine ~ Mark Manson

I try to live with few rules, but one that I've adopted over the years is this: if it's down to me being screwed up, or everybody else being screwed up, it is far, far, far more likely that I'm the one who's screwed up. I have learned this from experience. I have been the asshole acting out based on my own insecurities and flawed certainties more times than I can count. It's not pretty. ~ Mark Manson

When we say "Damn! Watch out! She doesn't give a fuck", we don't mean that she doesn't care about anything. On a contrary we mean that she does care about adversity in the face of her goals. She doesn't care about pissing some people off to do what is right ~ Mark Manson

Yes, breadth of experience is likely necessary and desirable when you're young - after all, you have to go out there and discover what seems worth investing yourself in. But depth is where the gold is buried. And you have to stay committed to something and go deep to dig it up. That's true in relationships, in a career, in building a great lifestyle - in everything. ~ Mark Manson

Adulthood is the realization that sometimes an abstract principle is right and good for its own sake, that even if it hurts you today, even if it hurts others, being honest is still the right thing to do. ~ Mark Manson

The fact is, people who base their self-worth on being right about everything prevent themselves from learning from their mistakes. They lack the ability to take on new perspectives and empathize with others. They close themselves off to new and important information. It's ~ Mark Manson

Freedom itself demands discomfort. It demands dissatisfaction. Because the freer a society becomes, the more each person will be forced to reckon and compromise with views and lifestyles and ideas that conflict with their own. The lower our tolerance for pain, the more we indulge in fake freedoms, the less we will be able to uphold the virtues necessary to allow a free, democratic society to function. ~ Mark Manson

The smallest dog barks the loudest ~ Mark Manson

Science is arguably the most effective religion because it is the first religion that is able to evolve and improve upon itself. ~ Mark Manson

For individuals to feel justified in doing horrible things to other people, they must feel an unwavering certainty in their own righteousness, in their own beliefs and deservedness. ...Evil people never believe that they are evil, rather, they believe that everyone else is evil. ~ Mark Manson

We are responsible for experiences that aren't our fault all the time. This is part of life. Here's ~ Mark Manson

I was sitting on my mom's couch that summer, staring into the so-called abyss, seeing the endless and incomprehensible nothingness where Josh's friendship used to be, when I came to the startling realization that if there really is no reason to do anything, then there is also no reason to not do anything; that in the face of the inevitability of death,there is no reason to ever give in to one's fear or embarrassment or shame, since it's all just a bunch of nothing anyway; and that by spending the majority of my short life avoiding what was painful and uncomfortable, I had essentially been avoiding being alive at all. ~ Mark Manson. “The Subtle Art Of Not Giving A F*ck.”

To truly appreciate something, you must confine yourself to it. There's a certain level of joy and meaning that you reach in life only when you've spent decades investing in a single relationship, a single craft, a single career. And you cannot achieve those decades of investment without rejecting the alternatives. ~ Mark Manson

The pursuit of happiness is a toxic value that has long defined our culture.<...> Living well does not mean avoiding suffering; it means suffering for the right reasons. ~ Mark Manson

Pain is an inextricable thread in the fabric of life, and to tear it out is not only impossible, but destructive: attempting to tear it out unravels everything else with it. To try to avoid pain is to give too many fucks about pain. In contrast, if you're able to not give a fuck about the pain, you become unstoppable. ~ Mark Manson.

The only true form of freedom, the only ethical form of freedom, is through self-limitation. ~ Mark Manson

When we let go of the stories we tell about ourselves, to ourselves, we free ourselves up to actually act (and fail) and grow. ~ Mark Manson

If Jane has to choose between 2 boxes of cereal, and Mike can choose from 20 boxes, Mike does not have more freedom than Jane. He has more variety. <...> Variety is not freedom. ~ Mark Manson

Fault is past tense. Responsibility is present tense. Fault results from choices that have already been made. Responsibility results from the choices you're currently making, every second of every day."

"There's a difference between blaming someone else for your situation and that person's actually being responsible for your situation. Nobody else is ever responsible for your situation but you. Many people may be to blame for your unhappiness, but nobody is ever responsible for your unhappiness but you. This is because you always get to choose how you see things, how you react to things, how you value things. ~ Mark Manson

Evolution rewards the most powerful creatures, and power is determined by the ability to access, harness, and manipulate information effectively. ~ Mark Manson

Being open with your insecurities paradoxically makes you more confident and charismatic around others. The pain of honest confrontation is what generates the greatest trust and respect in your relationships. Suffering through your fears and anxieties is what allows you to build courage and perseverance. Seriously, ~ Mark Manson

What pain do you want in your life? What are you willing to struggle for? ~ Mark Manson

Uncertainty also relieves us of our judgment of ourselves. Then 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. ~ Mark Manson

But then there are those people who overidentify with their emotions. Everything is justified for no other reason than they felt it. "Oh, I broke your windshield, but I was really mad; I couldn't help it." Or "I dropped out of school and moved to Alaska just because it felt right."
Decision-making based on emotional intuition, without the aid of reason to keep it in line, pretty much always sucks.
You know who bases their entire lives on their emotions? Three-year-old kids. And dogs. You know what else three-year-olds and dogs do? Shit on the carpet. ~ Mark Manson

Because there's an infinite number of things we can now see or know, there are also an infinite number of ways we can discover that we don't measure up, that we're not good enough, that things aren't as great as they should be. ~ Mark Manson

self-improvement" is really about: prioritizing better values, choosing
better things to give a fuck about. Because when you give better fucks, you get better problems. And
when you get better problems, you get a better life. ~ Mark Manson. “The Subtle Art Of Not Giving A F*ck.”

Because pain is the universal constant of life, the opportunities to grow from that pain are constant in life. All that is required is that we don't numb it, that we don't look away. All that is required is that we engage it and find the value and meaning in it. ~ Mark Manson

Ultimately, we are moved to action only by emotion. That's because action is emotion. ~ Mark Manson

You are already choosing, in every moment of every day, what to give a fuck about, so change is as simple as choosing to give a fuck about something else,
It really is that simple. It's just not easy. ~ Mark Manson

Like physical pain, our psychological pain is an indication of something out of equilibrium, some limitation that has been exceeded. And like our physical pain, our psychological pain is not necessarily always bad or even undesirable. ~ Mark Manson

When a person has no problemas, the mind automatically finds a way to invent some ~ Mark Manson

A more interesting question, a question that most people never consider, is, "What pain do you want in your life? What are you willing to struggle for?" Because that seems to be a greater determinant of how our lives turn out. ~ Mark Manson

Wanting positive experience is a negative experience; accepting negative experience is a
positive experience. ~ Mark Manson

But the problem with entitlement is that it makes people need to feel good about themselves all the time, even at the expense of those around them. And because entitled people always need to feel good about themselves, they end up spending most of their time thinking about themselves. After all, it takes a lot of energy and work to convince yourself that your shit doesn't stink, especially when you've actually been living in a toilet. Once ~ Mark Manson

So, instead of looking for hope, try this:
Don't hope.
Don't despair, either.
In fact, don't deign to believe you know anything. It's that assumption of knowing with such blind, fervent, emotional certainty that gets us into these kinds of pickles in the first place.
Don't hope for better. Just be better.
Be something better. Be more compassionate, more resilient, more humble, more disciplined. [...]
Be a better human. ~ Mark Manson

Self-improvement and success often occur together. But that doesn't necessarily mean they're the same thing. ~ Mark Manson