Mark Manson
One thing that I think most people don't notice is that if you're sitting around telling yourself, 'I want to be happier,' there's a kind of subconscious message that you're also telling yourself at the same time, which is, 'What I have is not enough.'
Whereas a lot of Buddhism concerns itself with stages of enlightenment, various precepts and moral codes, and even power structures and hierarchies, Zen is just like, 'Shut up, sit down, and observe your thoughts - oh, and by the way, what you perceive as you' doesn't actually exist.' I loved the minimalist approach of it.
Pain is important, and changing who you are is difficult, painful, and scary. Most of the self-help industry sees change as this euphoric, liberating thing and tells you that you can be happy all the time. I think the opposite.
Don't hang out with a bunch of people who drag you down when you can hang out with one person who makes you feel good.
I'm constantly obsessing about brand. I think of my books in terms of brand. I think of my blog articles in terms of branding. How does it fit my branding? I think in terms of demographics.
We all have great aspirations for ourselves, but if you expect yourself to change the world tomorrow, then you're going to just drown yourself in anxiety and constant feelings of inadequacy.
Self Help is a notoriously crowded market, but I believe that I've successfully differentiated myself in a few ways. For one, most demographic data shows that millennials think/act/see the world differently, and I don't think there's much personal development stuff out there that caters to millennial attitudes and experiences very well.
Whether you're from Egypt or Argentina or Singapore or Canada, you have a need to feel important, a need to feel secure, and a need to feel loved. The culture and economics just determine how those needs are expressed.
The fear of failure never goes away. In many ways, you could argue that success multiplies the opportunities for failure. It's just more of an argument for becoming more comfortable with it.
I think that, pretty much, any good thing taken to extremes can become a bad thing.
I was a big party guy in my twenties, and kind of a playboy as well. I adopted a lot of values and goals that were fairly superficial and, in many cases, self-destructive. They looked cool and sounded sexy on the surface, but underneath, there was no real meaning going on, just a lot of escapism.
Real happiness comes from discovering a sense of importance in one's actions and in one's life.
We start caring way too much about that new TV show or how many likes we're getting on Facebook or what our mother will think of our new house plant. These are bad values that turn us into frivolous people.
I love massive books: books so big, like bricks, you could drown yourself in a pool with them if you're not careful.
Writing/reading is like visiting another person's brain. And a short book or article is like a short stay. You come in, have a coffee, talk about the weather or sports, and then move on.
Just because you fall in love with someone doesn't necessarily mean they're a good partner for you to be with over the long term.
It's possible to fall in love with somebody who doesn't treat us well, who makes us feel worse about ourselves, who doesn't hold the same respect for us as we do for them, or who has such a dysfunctional life themselves that they threaten to bring us down with them.
Life is a big and complex game. It's the largest open world game known to date. We all begin with different starting stats, and we're placed into a wide range of environments that can either give us advantages or disadvantages.
You can always do something about the problems life gives you.
I think my approach to a creative career was very entrepreneurial. Even though I'm a writer, I've always viewed my work much in the same way as a startup or marketer might view their work.
The reason we fall in love with certain music and writing is we connect with it on a very personal level.
What I really, really love is writing. If I can just write and make a really nice living out of that, why would I change that?
My belief is that we all already care about something important. We all already know what is important and meaningful for ourselves. The problem is just that many of us have lost touch with it.
People want to offer opportunities to people they care about. They want to help people they believe are good people or have shared life experiences with.
A lot of cases, what makes you an interesting and complex person makes you a really horrible person to be with romantically.
In a strange way, I feel like we need to cultivate more boredom in our lives: like, boredom needs to be okay again. It needs to be seen as a good thing, and I think it's definitely a good thing for relationships.
I think it's always been normal for humans to compare themselves to each other, but we're so hyper-connected all the time now that it's driving us insane.
We're not accustomed to judging things on philosophical importance.
I think most people who try to start a business, they realise very quickly that one of the biggest hurdles is having to be self-determined.
Generally, our first idea of what our business is going to be is not the right one. It takes a few iterations; to get there, you have to be able to let go.
I can't really stand self-help stuff myself.
I felt that no self-help book had been written for millennials yet, so my ultimate goal was to write it.
Little things, when we're caught up and fretting about them, often appear to be big and meaningful and world-changing in the moment they are happening.
As soon as you try to eliminate a thought or emotion, you make it stronger.
Most of us commit to action only if we feel a certain level of motivation. And we feel motivation only when we feel enough emotional inspiration.
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.
Our moral philosophy determines our values - what we care about and what we don't care about - and our values determine our decisions, actions, and beliefs. Therefore, moral philosophy applies to everything in our lives.
For all we know, we are the only shot the universe has at intelligent self-organization. Therefore, we need to take it seriously.
OK, I'm as lazy as the next guy. Full disclosure. And I often feel guilty about it.
When people lay around whining to their therapists and ex-wives that they're finally going to 'change' themselves, they are promising something imaginary and made up.
We don't know what change is because we don't know what the hell we are. If I wake up tomorrow and do the exact opposite of everything I do today, am I a changed person? Or am I simply the same person who decided to try something different?
I had to decide that, you know what, I don't know who the hell I am or what I'm doing, but I do know that historically and scientifically and anecdotally, and anyone who is not an idiot knows, that waking up early and starting the day off with a nice, simple routine is a healthy and productive way to live one's life.
One of the beautiful things about Tyler Durden in 'Fight Club' is that he seems to understand the implicit vanity and self-absorption that comes with the desire to improve oneself.
Many people come to self-help material because they feel like something is wrong with them or the way they are. The problem is that anything that tells you how to improve your life is also implying that there is something inherently wrong with you the way you are.
There is no such thing as an optimum life.
I hate calendars, and after running my own online business for almost 10 years, I still don't have one.
I believe productivity is a deeply personal thing. We all have different brains and, therefore, different preferences, perspectives, and situations where we feel most effective.
Aside from birthing me my first grey hairs and keeping me up at night more times than I'd like to count, 'The Subtle Art' taught me a lot about the nature of work. And a lot of that had to do with how my perception of the work itself evolved over the course of writing the book.
Long-term, perpetual travel is the dream of many. But surprisingly, for such a popular desire, few people realize how accessible it is.