This book is a self-help book, almost along the lines of 12 Rules for Life. But for some reason Manson is not hated by the left for talking about taking responsibility for your actions, don't be a victim, hard work brings its own reward, self-control and responsibility .... While at the core both these books may seem the same, the packaging around them is very different. Peterson is positioned as someone in authority and has made a stir outside of his book. Mark on the other hand seems like a bit of a lad. He is someone who backpacked around the world, perhaps got a psychology degree and then through trial and error and a bit of reflection and research has come to some working knowledge on how to live your life. He also writes for an audience that can put up with swear words throughout (maybe those in their 20s think that is cool).
The book mixes interesting stories from philosophy and psychology next to stories from his life. This method cut both ways for me. In the first half of the book, I appreciated his honesty and give what he was saying some real-life experience and authenticity. However, about halfway into the book, as I got to know Mark more I was wondering why I would take advice from this person when I know more 20-something males who seem like they had better life goals and values than Mark did in his 20s.
Manson has some sage observations about social media and how that is affecting our idea of what is normal and mundane, or even just hard. We are constantly seeing everything that is perfect and of high skill value, but we are not seeing the hard work behind all that, or even just what is really normal. We are also distracted (or bored), caring about certain things too much and caring about others too little. We may focus on problems "out there" as an escape to deal with our own real-life problems. Or find fault with the person at the teller as it is easier to blame someone else for our misfortunes instead of looking at other areas of our lives that have problems. We should think hard about the things are we going to care about, for we should care about some things, but not everything. This is a subtle art, and mainly we should care about things we can actually change, like ourselves.
I used to think that life was a series of problems that needed to be solved. Mark follows this same idea saying happiness is solving problems. We need to choose what those problems are or what level of pain we are willing to have. Are we happy with the stagnation of where we are at (which has some level of pain) or do we want to change and break some cycle that we are in (which again has some level of pain)? When facing our problems in life we need to accept that they are our problems to solve, otherwise, we will end up blaming others for our problems. We actually get to choose the pain or in another way, we get to control our problems.
And the truth is we all have problems. The victimhood mentality and the egotistical both have the same approach to their problems. One thinks they suck and they have insurmountable problems so deserve special treatment, the self-aggrandizing person thinks they don't have any problems and is awesome so deserve special treatment. Both don't address their problems, and reason their responsibility to solve them away.
Manson also points out that really there are no personal problems, in the sense that no one else in the world understands. Most of the time, everyone has or has had the problems you are experiencing, maybe even someone you know. You can learn from others, for you aren't as unique or special as you may think.
Relationships can become toxic when one partner doesn't want to deal with their problems and another wants to take responsibility for the other's problems and solve them.
People can’t solve your problems for you. And they shouldn’t try, because that won’t make you happy. You can’t solve other people’s problems for them either, because that likewise won’t make them happy. The mark of an unhealthy relationship is two people who try to solve each other’s problems in order to feel good about themselves. Rather, a healthy relationship is when two people solve their own problems in order to feel good about each other.For victims, the hardest thing to do in the world is to hold themselves accountable for their problems.For savers, the hardest thing to do in the world is to stop taking responsibility for other people’s problems.
The book did have a really good distinction between taking responsibility for our problems and being at fault for our problems. Sometimes we don't always get to choose what happens to us, but we still can control how we can respond to what happens to us. For change to happen we do have to first admit that something is wrong, and we may not like that pain, or even the fear or failing if we try something new. I did resonate with that last point.
This review is getting quite long, and there was more in this book. I will try to be quick. There is an element of almost humility, borderline postmodernism in saying that everything you know isn't 100% right. You don't know everything, and where you are now will be different in the future. And Manson would be happy with applying that logic to his own book. He may get better insights later and will help sharpen what he has written. We are all hopefully growing in our knowledge, so we should also be kind to others. I do appreciate this charity towards others, but it may miss the idea of an Absolute. Likewise, on picking the right values to shape your life by, there was a list of good and bad ones, through the grid of areas you can control, not necessarily through an absolute or objective grid of what is right and wrong.
The only time Jesus is mentioned in this book is compared with other great thinkers on happiness and explaining why people like being part of something bigger than themselves:
Whether you’re listening to Aristotle or the psychologists at Harvard or Jesus Christ or the goddamn Beatles, they all say that happiness comes from the same thing: caring about something greater than yourself, believing that you are a contributing component in some much larger entity, that your life is but a mere side process of some great unintelligible production. This feeling is what people go to church for; it’s what they fight in wars for; it’s what they raise families and save pensions and build bridges and invent cell phones for: this fleeting sense of being part of something greater and more unknowable than themselves.
I think if you are putting Jesus in the same category as Aristotle and the Beatles in how to find happiness, you might be missing one or two ideas about Jesus.
This book was overall a trendy Gen Y, edgy self-help book. It could be helpful for you to improve something about yourself if you goal is to maximise happiness or to find fulfilment for your brief time here. There are some truths in here. His observations about our current culture, technology and human desires were pretty good. It is written to wake some people up to action, but it probably lacks a little in the area of people's wills and their sinfulness, not to mention being weak on ultimates.
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