SOME YEARS AGO, when I was still into a regular office job, I had an argument over phone with a colleague in Delhi. A pretty heated one. The minute it ended, she ran to her boss and cried a tear or two. The boss woman promptly dialled my boss and made a complaint. When I was summoned, I told my boss my side of the story. I can’t recall all that he said but a stray line has stayed with me: Choose the battles you fight.
Those words came back to me in a different context a couple days ago. I was reading this self-help book called The Subtle Art of Not Giving a F*ck by star blogger Mark Manson. While explaining the extremely arresting title of his book, Manson suggests that we would do well to choose what we give a f**k for. Instead of worrying about every little thing that goes wrong, we should prioritise, pick what matters to us and focus on sorting them out.
Make a choice
For instance, many of us would get irritated by a fuel pump attendant giving back our change in coins. Or if the daily episode of Mahabharat is cancelled on TV because a political bigwig has to address the nation. Or if someone at the booze shop is rude to us. In the process, we would overlook pressing issues such as paying bills or taking an ailing parent to hospital or feeding the dog.
“Most of us struggle throughout our lives by giving too many f***s in situations where f***s do not deserve to be given…. If you go around giving a f**k about everything and everyone without conscious thought or choice – well, then you’re going to get f***ed,” says the book.
What it means
Manson then spells out what he means: “There is a subtle art to not giving a f**k… what I’m talking about here is essentially learning how to focus and prioritise your thoughts effectively – how to pick and choose what matters to you… based on finely honed personal values. This is incredibly difficult.”
According to him, if a person gives two hoots about everything, it suggests that s/he feels entitled to be happy all the time with things running exactly how s/he pleases. “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. You will be confined to your own petty, skull-sized hell, burning with entitlement and bluster… in constant motion, yet arriving nowhere.”
Bigger picture
But it isn’t only the irrelevant and insignificant things that Manson is talking about. He applies his subtle art to bigger things as well. He begins the book with an account of the life of German-American writer Charles Bukowski, whose work was rejected by publishers till he was past 50. Through his life, he worked as a letter-filer in a post office. He was known to be an alcoholic, womanizer and a gambler. Yet, after a small-time editor expressed interest in his work, Bukowski wrote to him: “I have one of two choices – stay in the post office and go crazy… or… play a writer and starve. I have decided to starve.”
Subsequently, Bukowski (1920-1994) went on to publish six novels and hundreds of poems, selling over two million copies of his works. Manson attributes his success not to “some determination to be a winner” but to the fact that “Bukowski didn’t give a f**k about success”.
“To not give a f**k is to stare down life’s most terrifying and difficult challenges and still take action.” Wow. Choose the battles you fight.
Different, not indifferent
Manson clarifies that not giving a f**k does not mean being indifferent to everything; it means being comfortable with being different. To explain the point, he cites the example of his mother who was cheated of her money by a friend. Had he been indifferent, he would have let the matter pass; since he was not, he decided to sue the friend. “Why? Because I don’t give a f**k. I will ruin this guy’s life if I have to.”
The point, therefore, is not to not care about anything. The point is not to care about adversity in the face of one’s goals; not to care about people while doing what is right or important; not to care about being an outcast. It means having “the willingness to stare failure in the face and shove your middle finger back at it.”
Or learning to move “lightly despite your heavy burdens, resting easier with your greatest fears, laughing at your tears as you cry them.”
You could also call it learning to choose the battles you fight.