Ask Daily Stoic: Ryan and Mark Manson Discuss What You Should Actually Give a F*** About

Because we don't know what we want, we just want what other people want, and this locks us in this weird keeping up with the Joneses arms race competition to win contests that we, to use your word, don't actually give a fuck about.

People who go through traumatic experiences—less than 30% of them develop PTSD symptoms, whereas over 70% end up, six months later, [saying] that they actually benefited from their traumatic experience, so they experienced some degree of what's considered post-traumatic growth.

There's a freedom in not knowing things, and I think it's harder than ever probably to think that you don't know something today because we're just flooded with information. Generally, the information that gets shared the most is the information that is spoken or written with the most confidence, and generally, the people who speak or write with the most confidence are the people who don't know a damn thing at all.

It's impossible to not give a fuck. If you're alive and sentient and conscious, you have to care about something—that's just a fundamental state of being human. There is no such thing as not giving a fuck. So, the question then becomes, 'What is fuck-worthy? What deserves your fucks?'

The anonymity of the Internet removes the consequences of being a total asshole.