(Part 3) Top products from r/howtonotgiveafuck

I'm 30 and still working that out, but have made progress.

For me, the journey has heavily involved psychology books, through which I have come to understand myself and my hangups better. Karen Horney was great for me, Our Inner Conflicts and Neurosis and Human Growth are works of genius. Firestone's The Fantasy Bond has helped me out a lot as well.

At the end of the day, it becomes what everybody else says: you jump in feet first and do your best. Start hitting on girls in more situations. Start being more honest about what you want, instead of thinking you have to be all roundabout. Etc. If a man pretends to be disinterested in sex, a woman will assume he is disinterested in sex.

But getting to the stage where I could even begin to do that has involved a whole lot of fucking psychology, for me anyway.

Would you be willing to read a book that might help? Healing Your Emotional Self might be really good for you. The subtitle is "A powerful program to help you raise your self-esteem, quiet your inner critic, and overcome your shame." And those sound like good things, right? Imagine if you didn't have that inner critic kicking your ass after every interaction.

The main point that stuck out for me is that when we're children we treat our parents as mirrors for who we are, because we don't have the self-awareness to know ourselves at a young age. So if mom and dad are loving, that means you're lovable; if they act like you're a nuisance, it's because you're a nuisance - as a child you're not equipped to see the situation any other way. Sometimes we carry that into adulthood, and the book talks about how to heal from that. I think you mentioned shitty home life, so this might be useful. (By the way, good for you being so honest in this thread.)

Your posts are what made me subscribe to this sub. I think it would be a great idea to create a challenge book. If you haven't seen ["This Book Will Change Your Life"] (http://www.amazon.com/This-Book-Will-Change-Your/dp/0452284899) it may help draw some inspiration. Congrats on completing your challenge.

Actually I wouldn't be surprised if the replies are dudes either. Just because it's really easy to armchair quarterback someone else's problems, particularly when they're heavy on feelings.

Telling someone "just get over it and quit being so sensitive" is super fucking easy when it's not your own life, you know?

Also, you'd probably laugh a lot with this book (similarly themed to our discussion). It slayed me: http://www.amazon.com/Fifty-Years-Well-All-Chicks/dp/0307717380/

That's really cool. I love the book Finding Flow for applying this idea of flow to our daily lives. Thanks!

Surely you're joking, Mr. Feynman! (Link goes to US Amazon.com store)

Great autobiography about an amazing physicist.

I guess that could be true. I'm really interested in artforms which specifically try to sidestep the give-a-fuck aspect. Automatic drawing etc. Also, this book gave me a whole new understanding of the benefits and process of drawing. I find now that fetishising the artefact (the drawing / painting, whatever) is kind of hollow, and can be quite discouraging during periods of slower progress or experimentation with new techniques.

Those are good book recommendations. Amazon links for the lazy:

• The Invisible Gorilla: How Our Intuitions Deceive Us
  
• How to Win Friends and Influence People

I'm glad and flattered that my words resonate with you! For me the most revealing read was this one here. Mind you that she is a very religious person and it shows in the writing but if you don't mind that, her message is right on. I read it in two sessions. Definitely changed the way I looked at relationships. Can't guarantee that it will do the same for you but it's a start. I haven't explored the genre in a while so I'm sure other publications have been released since then that cover the topic.

Well, ultimately, your feelings about death are totally irrelevant.
So... maybe it's best to decide to have more pleasant feelings about it.

Or.. maybe you should look into Existentialism? http://www.amazon.com/Existentialism-A-Very-Short-Introduction/dp/0192804286/

Can I suggest picking up a copy of "Looking Out For #1"?
If you can't afford it PM and I'll send you a copy.

Where you are right now is a great, transformative place to be...

There's a book I'd like to recommend off the back of this comment. It's awesome.

I am reading Epictetus' Enchiridion right now and I suggest buying it. $2 on Amazon.

Enchiridion: http://www.amazon.com/Enchiridion-Dover-Thrift-Editions-Epictetus/dp/0486433595

Art of Living: http://www.amazon.com/Art-Living-Classical-Happiness-Effectiveness/dp/0061286052

That AoL book doesn't have the most amazing reviews, but I think it is the only version. Does anyone know of another/better version?

You should read The Tracker.

Feel the Fear and Do It Anyway by Susan Jeffers

I liked it.

You probably should GAF to an extent if you don't want to be a 40 year old virgin and die alone. HTNGAF is for social anxiety, not for giving up on what you want. Improve yourself. There's tons of books and resources on the internet about it. If you truly are hideously ugly, it's almost certainly because you don't take care if yourself well enough.

/r/nofap

https://www.amazon.com/Mate-Become-Man-Women-Want/dp/0316375365

Etc

http://www.amazon.com/Going-Solo-Extraordinary-Surprising-Appeal/dp/0143122770

This is more common than you think. In fact if you have natural traits where being alone is more comfortable than being in a relationship, you are pretty much set for a good comfortable life.


Being in a relationship is one of the most risky thing people do, but they must because being alone is just not an option for these mostly extroverts.


People who are alone are productive in non-relationship related aspects of life such as money, health and more time to pounder in general philosophical thoughts about the world (which feedbacks into more self improvements and understanding). If people tell you you're selfish for nothing wanting to care for others, well, that is one person out of 7+ billions. No one is that significant at all, so that argument is quite meaningless.

We get married, have kids not for sake of helping others, but because most people can't fantom a life being alone and its really of a more selfish act. NGAF to these need for social ties frees you into a life of extraordinary.

I think giving a fuck is the main source of pain, no matter if things are good or bad. When things are bad, people agnonise over it to an extreme degree which just entrenches the problems. When things are good, people become fearful and defensive because they're scared that things will go bad, which leads people to agonise over their life in the same way as when things are bad. I think the main problem is that people experience life and cling to it too intensely. Not giving a fuck is standing back and having a healthy objective perspective.

Western society constantly shoves the idea of positive thinking down everyones throat, if things are bad you just gotta contort your attitudes to fit a fake ideal, and if things are good you gotta keep that positive steam train running full tilt, no matter if you're headed for a cliff. Positive Thinking is exactly the kind of delusional bullshit that Not Giving a Fuck is supposed to resolve. This subreddit is getting hijacked by well meaning people who don't really understand that.

A thorough debunking of the Positive Thinking mind virus: Bright-Sided: How Positive Thinking Is Undermining America by Barbara Ehrenreich

As someone who developed depression himself after watching my mother take meds and therapy for 30 years and not get a bit better, I feel you need to reconcile yourself to the fact that other's lives are not a thing you can 'fix'. Most people don't want to change even if they say they do, or they are not really capable of it. It took me over 20 years to get out of my depression and I'm still surprised I did it.

You need to divorce yourself from the idea that anything she does or says or thinks has anything to do with you. Trying to put some of the blame on you is certainly not a nice thing to do, but you have to understand that a depressed person's brain is not working properly. Your primary goal should be to shore up your own mental health, primarily by countering anything negative she says to you by twice as much positive thinking directed inward.

Do you know how you become good at something? Practice. Its true not only for things like sports and music, but for purely mental activities as well. If you want to be good at, say, chemistry, you could read the right books over and over and over the way you might throw a baseball a thousand times to have it become automatic. Unfortunately, the same is true of social responses and emotional management. A thought repeated will change the layout of your brain. Neural pathways build up, becoming so strong that thinking in a new way can be very difficult.

The depressed person's thinking has gone off the rails at some point, starting off dwelling on negative emotions or hurtful thoughts until they start to become locked in. After a while, it becomes hard to not think that way. They have become experts at beating themselves up, with no realization that this is happening during the slow process.

To fix this, new pathways must be formed. Better thinking must be practiced. Really, really practiced - with the same fervor and repetition that put the old thoughts into place. Luckily, new pathways can override the old ones in a matter of months even if the depressed thinking has gone on for years. Unfortunately, there is very little way you can do this for another person. You cannot reach into another person's brain and adjust the settings.

And rest assured, all the things happening to your mother are the sole province of her brain. Nothing about my reality pre- and post-depression has changed, only my mental and emotional training, and it makes all the difference. Things that would crush me when I was depressed just slide off me now. If only our minds come with instruction manuals. We are taught math and history and sports and whatever else, but few people get a useful education on good ways of thinking. We have a lifetime to cobble together experiences, and attitudes, and perceptions, and expectations and then we slap them all together and call it our personality. All the while having little awareness that the whole process is happening.

I've read a lot of books trying to figure my way out of the hole. The most helpful for me is this one: Undoing Depression

I highly recommend it as it not only has the steps that helped me the most, but it does a very good job of describing just what depression is. If you need philosophical help, I found this one gave me a lot to think about: If You Meet the Buddha on the Road.. . Its an older book, so don't focus too much on the author's use of words like 'guru', just the general lessons on how our struggles are most self-directed.

You can help people, but you can't force something like a whole new life view into them. If you make your mother's depression your responsibility, you are likely setting yourself up for disappointment. I've been mostly failing with my own mother for quite a while - the book Undoing Depression has helped but the ultimate responsibility for mastering her own thoughts lies with her, as with everyone else. One last thing, meds did help a bit in that they put the emotional part of my brain (cortex) on the back burner for a while letting me focus on my reasoning brain (neo-cortex) to form new mental responses, but they were not a permanent solution for me. New thinking must be practiced, all day, everyday.

Good luck.