Every day, hundreds of millions of people suffer from too many fucks. They spend their lives in the prison of senseless fear and unnecessary worries. But it doesn’t have to be this way.
In this article, I’m going to take you through the five levels of no-fucking, with each level showing more no-fucking than the last. You will learn step by step how to face your fears, how to stop worrying about what other people think, and how to achieve the eternal bliss of a lifeless life.
Brace yourself, it’s time to stop giving fucks and start living.
Level 1: Shame
In psychology there is something known as the Spotlight effect. The Spotlight Effect says that we all tend to assume that people are paying much more attention to us than they actually do.
Think back to the last time you got a terrible haircut. Chances are you walked around all day thinking everyone was staring at that tragedy of a mop on your head. But the reality was that most people didn’t notice. And if they noticed, they certainly didn’t care.
One of my favorite quotes ever comes from author David Foster Wallace. He said:
You will stop worrying so much about what other people think about you when you realize how rarely they do.
As someone who grew up with a lot of social anxiety, this idea was absolutely profound for me. But the problem is that the idea itself is not enough. You have to go out into the world and experience it. You have to go out and challenge your own Spotlight Effect.
Does this mean you should put on a chicken suit and take a stroll at the local mall? No, not necessarily (although I won’t stop you). But it does mean that it has to be done do something.
You have to challenge yourself. You have to put yourself in uncomfortable situations in front of other people, and convincingly prove to yourself that no one is paying attention, that no one cares.
Tolerating shame is the basis of not giving a fuck. The moment you realize no one cares, you’ve conquered level one of not fucking.
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Level 2: Rejection
If being willing to look like an idiot is the first step in not giving a fuck, the next step is being willing to face rejection.
It’s one thing not to worry about what strangers think, but what about the people you really care about? Are you willing to say things that your friends and family might not approve of? Do you enjoy having difficult conversations? Are you afraid of embarrassing yourself on a date?
People who give way too many fucks don’t handle rejection well. Their self-esteem is so preoccupied with social approval that they find rejection intolerable and go out of their way to avoid it, usually through performance. They view every social situation in terms of, “What do I say or do to get people to like me?” And then they try to say or do that.
This is a terrible way to live, for a number of reasons. The first is just that it’s incredibly stressful. Every social interaction essentially becomes an exam at school, where you have to say and do exactly the right things to get the result.
But the real reason is that it prevents you from having healthy relationships in the first place. Even if you perform the right way and get people to like you, you will never fully trust that they like you for you.
The big break for most people comes when they finally drop the show and embrace authenticity in their relationships. If they realize no matter how well they perform, they will eventually be rejected by someone, they might as well be rejected for who they already are.
When you start approaching relationships with authenticity, by being unapologetic about who you are and living with the results, you realize that you don’t have to wait for people to choose you, you can choose them too.
And this changes everything.
Level 3: Criticism
Fact: You can’t keep everyone happy all the time.
No matter what you do, there will be people who criticize your actions and say negative things about you. And you have to learn to live with this, to understand that criticism is part of the job description of success, that the respect and admiration you crave will always come with a healthy helping of critics eager to tear you down.
The next time you are criticized, do the following:
- If you respect the person, listen to the criticism and improve.
- If you don’t respect that person, fuck them. Who cares?
Criticism is just information. If it’s not useful information about you, then it’s useful information about them. Either way, it’s constructive. So why avoid it?
Level 4: Failure
Something incredible happens when you stop caring about what other people think of you – and that’s what levels 1-3 were about – it gives you the freedom to fail.
All those things you’ve been curious about, all those adventures you’ve dreamed of but were too afraid to pursue, it all suddenly opens up to you because you no longer give a fuck what people will say about you when you fail.
You don’t care anymore what your family is going to say if you quit your bad job and can’t find a better one, so go ahead and quit. You don’t care anymore if you join a breakdancing class and are so bad at it that you become the butt of everyone’s joke, so go ahead and sign up.
The point is, it doesn’t matter if you fail. It matters what you Doing. Life happens in the process, not in the results.
Most of us are too results-oriented and not process-oriented enough, and I think a lot of this comes from the way we were raised. You grow up and you are rewarded when you get an A on the test or get a gold star for the activity. It’s all about ‘Can you achieve this result? And then we will reward you.”
But the fact is that life doesn’t actually work that way. In fact, in many ways life rewards the willingness to fail; life rewards the person who is willing to embarrass themselves a little, who is willing to take risks, who is willing to be bad at something for as long as it takes to achieve something. good at it.
So let me ask you: what are you unapologetically bad at? What are you more than happy to be terrible at because it brings so much joy to your life?
Find that something and go do it. Even if you fail spectacularly, you will have done something valuable, something you will be proud to tell your grandchildren about.
Level 5: Zero fucks given
Congratulations. We made it, my friends, to the pinnacle. Undeterred by shame, rejection, ridicule or failure, we have achieved the perfect freedom of not fucking.
A life without fucks is a life without pressure and without regrets. It is a life full of freedom, of doing whatever you want, of being whoever you want to be.
Look, you and everyone you know are going to die one day. So what the hell are you waiting for? That goal you have, that dream you keep for yourself, that person you want to meet. What’s holding you back? Go and do it.
Because seriously, who cares?
