F * Ck Feelings: a Book About How Terrible Life Is, but That’s Okay
Self-help books (and blogs) are big business because we all want to believe we can solve our own problems. In F * ck Feelings, Dr. Michael Bennett and comedy writer Sarah Bennett argue that instead of solving impossible life problems, we must learn to accept what we are and move from there.
This is part of a new series of Lifehacker book reviews . Not all life hacks can be described on a blog, so we decided to look at some of our favorite life changing books to dive deeper into the most important topics in life.
Who is this book for
F * ck Feelings is aimed at a group of people who hate self-help books but still want to read self-help books (we are a special group). While his ideas run counter to much of the cliched nonsense you’ll find in books with guru faces all over the place, it’s about understanding yourself.
If F * ck Feelings has a single thesis, it’s about not letting emotions cloud your problem solving skills . It’s not about suppressing feelings or ignoring them. It is about approaching the world from a more rational point of view. It’s about finding your place in the world, accepting it, and figuring out how to work with what you have, not what you want. The book is best for people who are tired of longing for unfulfillable desires, complain about things they cannot control, and who are tired of everything they are told that the only thing worth striving for in life is happiness. The book is also rife with pop culture references, profanity and humor, so if that’s what you’re looking for in the tips, then F * ck Feelings will find a happy place on your bookshelf.
F * ck Feelings is written for the more pragmatic of us. It’s simple, straightforward and to the point with actionable suggestions. This is refreshing given the copious amount of extraneous nonsense that usually packs up in self-help books.
What do you get
Unlike many self-help books, Feelings Wonders are not presented as a linear reading. Instead, it looks more like an encyclopedia. You choose your illness, read this section of the book, and then write it down. To keep things simple, the book is divided into 10 chapters:
- Fuck Self-Improvement : The chapter Fuck Self-Improvement reflects the overall purpose of the book: “Striving to improve yourself brings diminishing returns and prevents you from accepting yourself and living with what you have. This is one of the reasons why self-improvement efforts should take into account your constraints and competing priorities. Otherwise it will be less cultivation and more sabotage. ” This does not mean that the book is telling you to avoid cultivation. It simply gives you a list of other factors to consider besides how you are currently feeling.
- Fuck Self-Esteem: As the name suggests, this chapter talks about self-esteem, how to be a “loser,” confront bullies, cope with disabilities, and helps children build self-esteem.
- Damn it: life isn’t fair and we all have no equal opportunity. We like to think that we have a right to live in safety, but this is not for everyone. Rather than blinding yourself to the reality of this, the Bennetts offer a more earthy approach – tune in to the world around you and not expect justice. In short, injustice is normal, closure is not.
- To hell with utility : if you’re the type of person who goes overboard to help others – whether it’s just helping a friend through the day-to-day adversity of his life, or a braver altruism for humanity as a whole – you know that your altruism comes with serious risks. This could be responsibility for events outside your control, or an attempt to change someone who cannot be changed. When you fail, the guilt you end up feeling can ruin you. This chapter will help you find a more logical approach to helping people without overdoing it.
- Fuck Serenity : This chapter explores the biggest lie propagated by the self-help culture: you can completely get rid of stress, fear, anxiety and other troubles in life. Instead of the self-botomics necessary for a serene life in 21st century America, this chapter outlines ways to create more positive relationships with the most unpleasant aspects of life. This includes dealing with bad relationships, facing your fears, and dealing with passive-aggressive hatred.
- Fuck Love : This chapter is about keeping yourself in control when you are in love . It boils down to understanding the differences between what you want and what you need. If you find yourself looking for love in the wrong places, then this chapter is for you. It lays out strategies for identifying what you are good at, focusing your attractiveness in a way that demonstrates your strengths, and then finding a partner. It also helps you deal with commitment, change, sex, and lost love.
- Fuck Communication : Communication is the essence of positive relationships, and we all strive to be better at it. When this is the case, we assume that we can resolve conflicts, get better jobs, and reward intimacy. As the theme of this book suggests, the Bennetts point out that sometimes no amount of communication can solve a problem. Learning to avoid these conversations is more important than learning to communicate. If you’ve ever felt that communication is a panacea that doesn’t really work, this chapter covers other options.
- Fuck parenting: This chapter is all about parenting, or rather, how to keep yourself in check and not spoil your child. Whether you are a new parent or already have multiple parents, these chapters describe ways to keep your child safe without compromising your mental health.
- Fuck Assholes : Like it or not, other people in the world are terrible and can ruin your day (or life) with just a few simple steps. This chapter focuses on working with such people, whether they are friends, loved ones, or strangers.
- Fuck Treatmen t: Self-help can only turn on some of us so far. This is why, even though there is an industry of books that sell in the millions, we still have therapists in the world. In this chapter, you will find out if you need a therapist and how to find one ( which we covered too ).
You don’t need to read this entire book, this is one of the best parts of it. If you’re not struggling in every aspect of your life (sorry), you can pick the chapters you like and leave the rest behind.
One trick you won’t succeed
I loved this book and there are many special tricks for each of the various potential illnesses you may encounter. But personally, my favorite approach was incredibly simple and outlined at the end of the book, in the chapter “Fucking Treatment”. It’s about a specific problem (grumpiness), but the approach itself is universal:
Ask yourself if your nagging affects the roles you value the most, in which a little misplaced anger can do a lot of damage to your upbringing, partnership, and possibly leadership. If you don’t think capriciousness has a big effect, then it’s just an annoying but harmless personality trait, like constantly asking for five or ending every sentence with a question mark. If you think your irritability is holding you back, seek out a therapist who seems to be able to help you identify what you do when you are angry and manage your behavior more effectively.
For me, this reflects what the book is trying to achieve in general: a little practice of self-awareness along with a little introspection. Is there something you don’t like about yourself? Does it even matter or are you just picking on? If it matters, let’s see what you can do about it using the tools you have. If not, spend this energy elsewhere.
Our opinion
F * ck Feelings seems like a breath of fresh air from the self-help section of a bookstore, but it still sticks to the basic formula of the genre. He offers a unique approach to problem solving and then repeats this approach throughout the book using many different examples.
However, the nice thing about F * ck Feelings is that while the advice is clinical, the presentation is more relaxed. It offers logical solutions to problems and usually gives you concrete examples of how to use your own sense of logic to solve problems yourself. Despite the name, this is not about ignoring your feelings, but about not letting them cloud your decision and not respecting every silly knee jerk reaction you experience as your true self. All this practicality breeds simplicity, which should make life a little easier for all of us.
Along with this simplicity, there is an adjustment in expectations, which is my favorite part of the book as a whole. Instead of striving for the sky and constantly being disappointed, F * ck Feelings wants you to always remember that life sometimes sucks, but that’s okay. You may have goals, but there are things in life that you cannot control. Once you accept this, everything else becomes easier. It carries with it the danger of promoting “settledness” instead of trying to do good things, but I felt that F * ck Feelings was on that line well. However, I could see people think that this goes too far on the subject of “everything is out of your control.” But as the book says, it is very important to be practical about the advice you take. If you don’t like something, don’t worry about it.
Where the F * ck Feelings hesitates the most is in his language. He tends to repackage and repeat a lot of his (admittedly good) advice on every topic. It also over-uses profanity and political incorrectness to the point where it ultimately turns out to be very ineffective. As with any humor, some of them (along with some pop culture references) will be lost to you, but you just have to keep reading. But then again, I don’t think you should read the book in a linear fashion, and if you just stick to a few chapters that affect you, then these complaints will be minor.
You can buy the book on Amazon for $ 10.99 for an e-book or $ 12.89 for a hardcover book. You can also visit Bennett’s website, which has several blogs and a tips column to get an overview of the book.