Book Report: Everything is F*cked: A Book About Hope

Book description

We live in an exciting time. Things are up for some and terribly down for others. Written by Mark Manson, Everything is F*cked: A Book About Hope attempts to name precisely what's going on in the world today and how we got here. A humorous, challenging read that pushes its audience toward honesty. This journey highlights technology's role in our current state, the effects of ever-shifting cultures, and how the pursuit of happiness sometimes leads to unhappiness.

Five key quotes/takeaways

• "Self-worth is an illusion. It’s a psychological construct that our Feeling Brain spins in order to predict what will help it and what will hurt it. Ultimately, we must feel something about ourselves in order to feel something about the world, and without those feelings, it’s impossible for us to find hope."
• "These narratives we invent for ourselves around what’s important and what’s not, what is deserving and what is not—these stories stick with us and define us, they determine how we fit ourselves into the world and with each other."
• "This is our challenge, our calling: To act without hope. To not hope for better. To be better."
• "But to have hope, people need to feel that they are part of some greater movement, that they are about to join the winning side of history. And, for that, you must give them faith."
• "Without truth, there are no reliable principles to dictate decisions, therefore everything devolves back into childish selfishness."

Final thoughts

My introduction to Mark Manson was his New York Times bestseller, The Subtle Art of Not Giving A F*ck. The success of that book led me to purchase Everything is F*cked: A Book About Hope. It took me some time to finish this book; I did buy it some time ago. Halfway through this book, I had the same sentiment halfway through You Are a Badass At Making Money by Jen Sincero. I thoroughly enjoyed her first book. I thought the second one followed too closely the same pattern, which tired me out. Everything is F*cked had the same fate. However, Mark does use excellent examples to get his point across, and I did learn something here. Everything is f*cked; it is a truth. A hard truth. Not to mention, the traditional hopes and dreams we're fed are fabricated. Maybe not completely, but deeply fabricated. This book served as a reality check for me around the idea of hope. Mark seems to have an aptitude for balancing storytelling's who, what, and why.

Score

⭐️⭐️⭐️ / 5 Stars