Do you think that you sometimes care too much about something?
Everyone knows that caring excessively about someone or something is a problem. It's a problem for me, for you, and everyone else. So, the primary question many ask is how one can stop caring. But they often overlook the fact that caring is not bad. Caring for others builds your social networks, relationships, friendships, and whatnot. What should instead be asked is–how to manage the things I care about.
Mark Manson takes a "counterintuitive approach" to the common self-help jargon in the subtle art of not caring. The central thesis of the book is that you CAN NOT avoid problems. If you are the CEO of a company that recently sold its shares to Google and is currently living off of its profits, you face the problem of having no purpose like the CEO of Spotify did. If you are famous, it doesn't necessarily mean you're happy. Many actors and singers have resorted to drugs and substance abuse upon touching stardom, thus ruining their lives. You will have problems throughout your life, and you cannot escape or avoid them. Instead, the better approach, according to Mark, is to choose the issues you suffer.
For example, if you're dead set on becoming a clinical psychologist, you have chosen a set of problems to achieve that goal. This would include doing a bachelor's and a master's degree in clinical psychology and applying for RCI certification. It seems hectic, but if you chose any other career path, it would be just as tiresome, if not more. Thus, Mark declares that all life is suffering, and the aim is to choose the problems you are willing to suffer from. That you would enjoy suffering from. These problems would, in turn, become the purpose of your life and thus lead you to a more satisfying one.
Conversely, what happens is that once you get a problem that is big enough, all of the little things will stop bothering you. You stop caring about things that aren't relevant to your goal. I used to worry about many little somethings myself. This included whether my hair was all right, whether my clothes matched, whether my friend wasn’t hurt by my comments, whether my friend misheard me, or whether others cared for me. However, once I found some goals to work toward that were more significant than anything else up until this point, I automatically stopped caring about these tiny worries. They remained as pebbles in front of the giant boulder. I had to push; I wanted to go.
To conclude, the secret sauce for not caring about other people's opinions is to care about a problem worth the struggle. It's worth getting embarrassed about, worth fighting for, and worth every minute of your time. As Nietzsche said, "To live is to suffer. To survive is to find some meaning in the suffering”.
References:
1. Manson, M. (2016, September 13). The Subtle Art of Not Giving a F*ck: A Counterintuitive Approach to Living a Good Life (2nd Edition). Harper.
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