I’ve recently started to rediscover my love for reading.
This is mostly as a result of the piss-poor weather that we’ve been having here in northern Florida.
Here’s one book in particular that has really had me turning the pages in the past few days:
Sounds a little vulgar… and believe me it certainly reads as such, but the ideas Manson puts forth about achieving happiness start to make a lot of sense if you give him a chance.
It is not, as some might guess by the title, a book preaching the art of indifference. It IS however a philosophy driven by making conscious choices about what we decide is worth our energy.
Pain in life is inevitable, because well… sometimes life kind of sucks. For some more than others, but in the grand scheme of things, we all have BS that we have to endure during our short time on this world. How we USE that pain is up to us.
People who know me, or have been following my blog, know that I’ve been through my share of crap.
My big example would be: I had a tumultuously traumatic childhood that forced me to grow up too fast, caused mainly by my mother’s choices.
I can’t change what happened.
I won’t pretend that there was a bright shiny lining to it all. It sucked.
I’m also perfectly fine to still have scars from it, as scars are part of life. Scars from life’s battles make us who we are.
In a lot of ways, my trauma is my mother’s fault.
However, my trauma is MY responsibility.
I can control how it affects me NOW.
I can control how it influences my actions, my attitude, my outlook, etc.
I can choose to become conscious of what baggage I have inside myself, and take a deeper look into how it effects my values.
Growing up, I had a rampant external locus of control. I felt like the world was against me, and that it was going to do nothing but beat me down for the rest of my life. It has made me feel like a loner, as if I didn’t deserve anyone to be in my life as if my relative’s shortcomings were a part of everyone so I shouldn’t let myself get too close to anyone.
What this all boils down to is one word: insecurity.
Mark says that we should use our pain as fuel for what REALLY matters, and stop giving a f*** about what doesn’t.
So yeah, someone might end up letting me down, but I can choose to not give a f***. They let me down, that was THEIR shortcoming, not mine. I can choose not to let this insecurity affect my relationships in this way.
Life is a series of problems, and I’m choosing to let go of this bad problem so I can focus on the good ones.
Good problems?
How can I be more creative?
How can I find a positive outlet to let out my frustrations?
How can I be more assertive?
How can I be less intimidated by new relationships?
These are all within my control, and no one else’s, and are things worth caring… or as Mark would say… giving a F*** about.
If you’re feeling a little lost right now, I’d recommend checking out this one out.
Like any self help book… take it with a grain of salt, but give the philosophy a read. You might just find it interesting.
