PDF Summary:Everything Is F*cked, by Mark Manson

Although our living conditions are generally better than they’ve ever been, statistics show that people are getting steadily unhappier. According to self-help author Mark Manson, this is due to an epidemic of hopelessness: People no longer feel like they can help create a better future. The solution to this problem is complicated—Manson argues that the hope that makes us feel fulfilled also leads us to harm ourselves and others. Thus, we must learn to live a fulfilling life without hope for a better future.

In this guide, we’ll describe how both hopelessness and hope itself have caused many of the world’s worst problems, and we’ll explain how you can progress toward a fulfilling life without hope. In our commentary, we’ll provide supplementary information from relevant books that preceded Everything Is F*cked, including Man’s Search for Meaning and Learned Optimism. We’ll also provide tips from books like Atomic Habits and No-Drama Discipline to help you apply Manson’s ideas to your life.

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How, specifically, can adults learn to hope if they feel hopeless? We’ll discuss this next.

What to Do if You Feel Hopeless

Manson offers two main strategies for cultivating hope. First, find hope by changing your beliefs about yourself. Reflect on your past experiences and find a way to reinterpret them so you believe that you do have the ability to attain something of value, rather than believing that you’re inherently worthless and powerless.

You’re Already Valuable

Arguably, changing your beliefs about yourself doesn’t require reflecting on the past. The authors of The Courage to Be Disliked contend that generally, reflecting on your past is a distraction that prevents you from taking action in the present. Instead, they recommend living as if the past doesn’t exist.

Additionally, it may help you feel valuable and empowered to know that the authors of The Courage to Be Disliked argue that every human helps others by simply existing. Many people find human life to be inherently valuable, and coexisting with others makes these individuals happy. Everyone else is actively helping those people to be happy just by being alive. In short, feeling valuable is an extremely attainable goal because being alive is something valuable.

Second, Manson argues that you can cultivate hope by aligning your emotions with your values. In other words, encourage yourself to feel good about doing the “right thing” and feel bad about doing the “wrong thing.”

Most people fail to realize that ultimately, emotions control all our behavior. We assume that we use logic to decide what to do, unless our emotions steer us off course—but biologically, the truth is the other way around. Manson explains that emotions are the mechanism by which our brains push our bodies into action. If we feel like doing something, we do it, and if we don’t feel like doing something, we don’t. For this reason, when it makes you feel good to lead a disciplined life and progress toward a better future (which is necessary to feel hope), you’ll do it automatically and effortlessly.

To align your emotions with your values, Manson states that you must learn to regulate your emotions. To do this, first, cultivate awareness of your emotions and unconditionally accept that it’s OK to feel them. Shaming yourself for any emotion will only make you feel worse about yourself, which will make it more difficult to act. Then, remind yourself how good you’ll feel after you’ve done the “right thing.” By anticipating a pleasant future, you’ll become excited to spring into action. Regulating your emotions in this way is the only way to build self-discipline, according to Manson.

Align Your Emotions and Values by Structuring Your Environment

In Atomic Habits, James Clear expands on the biological information Manson provides. Clear acknowledges that emotions drive our behavior, but he also notes that if we’ve done something enough times that it becomes a habit, we’ll continue to do it on autopilot, even if the emotions pushing us into action aren’t very strong. Thus, if you can build the emotions necessary to perform a meaningful task enough times, it’ll eventually become a habit and feel effortless.

The strategies Manson offers for creating the emotions needed to push you into meaningful, hopeful action are both entirely internal tasks (increasing emotional awareness and connecting to a pleasant future). Although these strategies are likely effective, changing your psychology by learning to regulate your emotions can be very difficult. If you’re struggling to make progress, you may want to try Clear’s simpler strategy for pushing through this first stage and building a habit: creating an environment in which doing the right thing feels good.

Clear offers many strategies for implementing this practice. One option is to pair unpleasant yet important activities with pleasant ones to make the pair as a whole feel gratifying. For example, keep your favorite book on your treadmill and only allow yourself to read it while jogging. Another option is to track your habits visually to make completing them feel more satisfying. Every time you put money into a savings account, you could color in a hand-drawn “progress bar” that shows how close you are to an exciting major purchase.

Stage 2: A Hopeful Life

Once you manage to align your emotions and values, you reap the benefits of a life with something to hope for. It feels like your life matters, and you find satisfaction in trading pain in the present for a future without pain. Unfortunately, Manson argues, this worldview also results in a life of suffering—and the vast majority of people live by it. The even worse news is that hope is what motivates us to make others suffer, as we’ll see.

Hope Causes Us to Suffer

To explain why hope causes us to suffer, we have to clarify how hope operates in a little more detail.

Hope Requires Ideology

Recall Manson’s definition of hope: You believe that you have the ability to pursue something of value and have others recognize you for it. People often disagree on what constitutes the “something of value” that you should pursue. Further, people clump together in groups based on shared values, reinforcing each other’s beliefs and encouraging one another to keep pursuing what they believe is valuable.

Manson calls these groups “religions,” but we’ll use the broader term “ideologies,” since they include both spiritual groups and secular groups. Ideologies like this include political parties, religious faiths, and corporations—any group of people pursuing something they find more meaningful than anything else.

Every ideology has a primary virtue, something adherents believe is more valuable than anything else (Manson calls this primary virtue a “God Value”). Political parties value political control above all else. Religious faiths value spiritual obedience above all else. Corporations value profits above all else. The members of every ideology share a key belief: By pursuing our primary virtue, we can trade pain in the present for a less painful future. This belief is what gives them hope. Manson claims that every source of hope is an ideology of some kind.

Primary Virtues: Different Paths to the Same Moral Ideals

Manson asserts that different ideologies are built around fundamentally different values. However, in The Righteous Mind, Jonathan Haidt argues that all humans are emotionally driven to promote the same universal, evolutionarily programmed moral ideals: care, fairness, loyalty, authority, sanctity, and liberty. A society closer to these ideals is the less painful future that people of all ideologies hope for.

In Haidt’s view, Manson’s concept of a “primary virtue” is less of a moral ideal in itself and more of a means to bring about moral ideals—a “how,” not a “why.” For example, a Mormon only values obedience to that religious code because they hope such obedience will bring about care, fairness, and so on.

However, if all ideologies are trying to reach the same moral ideals, why do they take the form of conflicting groups? Haidt argues that this isn’t a purely logical conflict—ideologies don’t just disagree on how to achieve the same ideals. Instead, conflict occurs because people with different ideologies emotionally favor the six moral ideals to varying degrees. For instance, although a Mormon values all these moral ideals, they may see sanctity as somewhat more important than liberty.

According to Haidt, this framework gives us a wealth of insights into our modern political conflict. He explains that liberals typically appeal more to care, liberty, and fairness while conservatives favor loyalty, authority, and sanctity. However, Haidt argues that because conservative rhetoric often appeals to all six moral ideals while liberal rhetoric stays away from more conservative ideals, conservative movements typically have an advantage in persuading the public to support them. For example, a conservative politician may appeal to the public’s sense of fairness by arguing that policies like affirmative action aren’t fair, but a liberal politician would have a harder time appealing to the public’s respect for just authority.

Ideology Causes Us to Suffer

Manson argues that unfortunately, the hope you get from an ideology will always cause you to suffer. No ideology can always deliver on its promise of a less painful future because life is, and always will be, painful. This is true on a biological level: No matter what your external circumstances are in life, your brain will always settle into a state of dissatisfaction. This is what helps us survive—evolutionarily, constant dissatisfaction is what motivates us to keep engaging in productive action.

(Shortform note: This idea is one of the main points in Manson’s first book, The Subtle Art of Not Giving a F*ck. In Subtle Art, Manson elaborates that although we’re evolutionarily destined to always be dissatisfied, we’re also predisposed to find the process of improvement intrinsically satisfying. In other words, although you’ll always face problems in life, continually solving those problems can help you find happiness. This explanation of how hope can make a painful life feel satisfying is more specific than the one Manson offers in Everything Is F*cked.)

While many ideologies successfully help people improve their lives, no ideology can continue to improve your life indefinitely, giving you a perfect, painless life. This is disastrous because when an ideology can no longer give you a better future, it can no longer be a source of hope.

When an ideology fails to make us happier or eliminate the pain it promises, we can react in a couple of different ways. First, we could abandon the ideology entirely, which Manson argues would be best. Unfortunately, people rarely blame the ideologies for the pain they feel, because the ideologies have provided the hope and meaning driving their life for years.

People following an ideology that makes them unhappy often blame themselves rather than the ideology, argues Manson. Instead of rejecting their ideology’s primary virtue, they preserve their sense of hope by accusing themselves of failing to adhere to that virtue strongly enough. In this way, hoping for a better future causes you to suffer: When a better future doesn’t arrive, it makes you feel worse about yourself.

For example, imagine someone buys a new video game that gives them a feeling of hope in life. They adopt success in that video game as their primary virtue and spend all their time playing with other gamers who are just as obsessed with winning in that game. This gamer feels proud and validated every time they rise on the game’s online leaderboard, until they’re one of the top 1,000 players in the world. Then, without the ability to improve their skills more, they lose the pleasure of progress. However, instead of abandoning the ideology of virtual domination and quitting the game to find something more fulfilling to do, they emotionally punish themselves for failing to get better at the game, falling into a state of perpetual suffering.

Ideological Disappointment in Romantic Relationships

Often, these same dynamics play out in toxic relationships. In Getting the Love You Want, Harville Hendrix and Helen LaKelly Hunt explain that the personality type you’re attracted to is based on an idealized version of your caregivers from childhood. For this reason, when you fall in love with someone, you’re likely to see them as a perfect source of love, overlooking their flaws. This causes you to falsely believe that investing in this person will result in a painless future—a perfect “happily ever after." In this way, romantic relationships are two-person ideologies in which one becomes the other’s primary virtue and source of hope (Manson explicitly acknowledges this in his book).

However, at a certain point, as the chemical rush of new love wears off and your partner’s flaws become impossible to ignore, they no longer give you the hope of a perfect future. Just as in broader ideologies, this may cause you to blame yourself rather than the other person or the relationship itself. This is particularly common among those with an anxious attachment style, who habitually idolize their partner and demean themselves. People with an anxious attachment style are unlikely to abandon the “ideology” of their relationship and find a new one because they see the relationship as vital to their well-being—in other words, it has been one of their main sources of hope.

If the anxious attacher continues to believe that they’re responsible for all the relationship’s flaws instead of appropriately holding their partner accountable and finding someone better, they’ll continue to seek love and validation from someone who will never fully give it to them, trapping themselves in a miserable relationship.

To avoid getting stuck in this kind of romantic relationship, communicate your needs directly so that compatible partners know how they can support you. Further, promise yourself that you’ll break up with anyone who isn’t invested in helping you fulfill those needs—this mirrors Manson’s advice to abandon ideologies that no longer serve you. Remind yourself that there are plenty of wonderful potential romantic partners in the world, so there’s no need to cling desperately to one who’s treating you poorly.

Hope Causes Us to Make Others Suffer

According to Manson, when ideologies fail to bring about a better future, adherents don’t just blame themselves—often, they also blame the members of a competing ideology. In other words, they come to believe that everyone would be living lives free of pain if it weren’t for the people preventing them from pursuing their primary virtue further. Every ideology does this to some extent.

Furthermore, there’s no way to decouple hope from interpersonal conflict. Hope requires you to constantly progress toward a better future. For this reason, after you’ve done everything possible to pursue your primary virtue in your own life, the only meaningful pursuit you have left is to battle against others with conflicting goals. In other words, dominance over others is the only never-ending source of hope.

This has been the cause of all conflict and warfare throughout history, insists Manson. Every time a nation tries to conquer another, or a religious group crusades to convert or kill those of another faith, it’s because such an endeavor gives them hope. If you allow hope to be the primary motivation behind your actions, you’ll inevitably end up hurting people in the name of a greater good that doesn’t exist.

Humans Don’t Need Ideology to Hurt Each Other

Some evidence suggests that most of the time, humans don’t even need the promise of a painless future to cause each other to suffer. In The Lucifer Effect, Philip Zimbardo argues that most of those who committed history’s most cruel atrocities didn’t do so because they were ideologically motivated or looking to blame and dominate a member of a competing ideology. Rather, they were just in the wrong place at the wrong time. Zimbardo asserts that in the right conditions, our immediate surroundings can disrupt our sense of morality on a biological level, causing anyone to willingly inflict extreme suffering on someone else.

Specifically, you’re extremely likely to commit evil if a nearby authority figure is ordering you to do something immoral and if you can’t be held accountable for your actions. Zimbardo cites the famous Milgram experiment, in which a psychologist ordered volunteers to administer electric shocks to a “fellow volunteer” (who was an actor pretending to be shocked). When the psychologist agreed to take full responsibility for the experiment and ordered the volunteer to keep administering more painful shocks, 65% of volunteers shocked the actor into unconsciousness. They were willing to severely hurt—or even kill—another person just because someone “important” was there giving orders and taking responsibility.

That said, Zimbardo also acknowledges that group norms can pressure us into doing evil, too. To make sure your group’s ideology doesn’t coerce you into conflict or violence, Zimbardo advises being more critical of your group than others to counteract our natural bias. If you find yourself in a group that doesn’t share your morals, leave and find another group as soon as you can.

Stage 3: A Happy Life Without Hope

If we need hope to cope with the pain of existence but hope inevitably causes us to suffer and to force other people to suffer, what’s left for us to do? Manson argues that the only moral way to live is to return to a life without hope—that is, to pursue a life of pain without expecting it to result in a less painful future. Instead of finding meaning by trying to bring about a more pleasant future, you can find meaning by having a positive impact right now.

But how do you define a “positive impact”? Manson acknowledges that this “hopeless” worldview is an ideology, like the others, in the sense that it has a primary virtue: meaningful human life. He argues that this is the only primary virtue that doesn’t require you to cause suffering to attain it. At every second of the day, work to help yourself and all others 1) live a meaningful life and 2) protect everyone’s ability to live a meaningful life.

This philosophy is unique compared to the hope-based ideologies we’ve been discussing in that it involves living for the present moment. Instead of working toward a better future, strive to immediately make someone’s life better at all times. Manson acknowledges that such a life is rarely painless, but it always feels meaningful.

Live in the Moment, Plan for the Future

In How to Live, Derek Sivers (Anything You Want) argues that while it’s important to live in the moment, there are many benefits to living for the future, as well.

Many of the most effective ways you can help others live meaningful lives have no immediate positive impact. In these pursuits, have hope that your actions now will pay off in the long term (contrary to Manson’s argument). For example, practicing a skill like drawing won’t do much good for others when you’re first learning, but after you’ve practiced for 10 years, you’ll be able to create art that powerfully enriches others’ lives. Similarly, if you want to save money for your children to go to college, you should invest your savings now and avoid touching them for years.

Conversely, Sivers asserts that too often, we treat the future like a garbage dump, pushing our problems forward in time instead of solving them now. Doing this does direct harm to the meaningful lives of the next generation—including your children.

Sivers offers practical suggestions to help you consider the future. First, put a picture of your face and the faces of your loved ones through an age progression filter and keep these photos somewhere you can see them often. This will motivate you to take care of those people, who won’t exist for many years. Additionally, for every choice you make, imagine what your life would be like if you repeated that choice forever. Every choice you make helps build a habit, and you want those habits to have good consequences down the line.

How to Practice a Life Without Hope

To live a life without hope, Manson recommends following one rule: Never use a human (including yourself) solely as a means to some other goal. This means that under no circumstances is it justified to sacrifice someone else’s ability to live a meaningful life. For example, you could morally campaign to get a responsible political figure into office, but you could never morally assassinate a cruel political dictator to do so—this would be using that dictator’s human life as a means to achieve your political goal.

Manson asserts that this life philosophy will also radically improve your relationship with yourself. When you treat your meaningful life as your primary virtue, you take care of yourself—for instance, by exercising, eating well, and getting enough sleep—not because you hope it’ll help you feel pleasure later, but because you know it’s good for you now. In contrast, doing hard drugs and degrading your body for pleasure is immoral because you’re abusing your body as a means to experience pleasure.

Manson’s Ideology Is Paradoxical

You could argue that Manson’s ideology is self-contradictory. This ideology is a deontological theory—in other words, it argues that certain actions are inherently right and some are inherently wrong, no matter what context there is to justify those actions. As a deontological theory, Manson’s ideology is subject to the paradox of deontology, which points out that sometimes, it’s impossible to do something morally right without doing something morally wrong.

For example, imagine you see someone with a gun about to shoot into a crowd, and you realize you need to quickly incapacitate them to protect the crowd’s meaningful lives. However, hurting the armed shooter would be using that person’s meaningful life to accomplish some other goal—would Manson say this is immoral?

This paradox equally applies to your relationship with yourself. Sometimes, it’s necessary to harm or sacrifice yourself to protect the meaningful life of others. Pushing your child out of the way of a moving car is risking your meaningful life in service of another goal—would Manson say this is immoral?

However, the alternative consequentialist theories, which hold that actions are morally right or wrong depending on how good their end result is, have their own flaws. As Manson has described, the excuse of sacrificing yourself or others for some “greater good” can justify actions that cause extreme suffering. These are questions with no easy answers.

A Future Without Hope

Manson acknowledges that humanity will never unanimously embrace this “hopeless” mindset, and thus, we won’t be able to stop the conflict and violence currently plaguing the world. Humanity as a whole is addicted to hoping for a better future, and it’s willing to destroy itself to do so. This hope-fueled destruction takes place on every scale: countries going to war, cities failing to take care of their citizens, and family members abusing one another.

Ultimately, Manson argues that there’s only one potential solution to this problem: We must wait until artificial intelligence (AI) gains supreme control over the world. While this sounds ridiculous at first, Manson insists that once artificial intelligence is advanced enough, it will gain the ability to improve itself by creating better artificial intelligence. At this point, AI will reach a level of intelligence we can’t comprehend: It will understand the universe at such a deep level that it will be able to mold it into whatever shape it decides to.

Manson is optimistic that an AI-controlled world would be ideal for us. Humanity is so bad at governing itself that machines would almost certainly do a better job. Manson anticipates that artificial intelligence will dramatically transform our world into an unrecognizable form, and that afterward, we’ll be better off.

Even if artificial intelligence is our only hope as a species, we don’t need to worry about it. As we’ve established, you have all the tools you need to live a meaningful life without regard for the future at all. Simply live for the moment, fulfilled by the constant pursuit of the preservation of meaningful human life.

Manson Is a Dataist, Others Are Techno-Humanists

In Homo Deus, Yuval Noah Harari also considers the possibility that artificial intelligence will evolve to the point that it controls our lives. He explains that the philosophy that supports this vision of the future—the philosophy Manson asserts here—is called “Dataism,” as its highest value is the ability to process data and use that data to transform the world. This view holds that humans are valuable because they’re complex data processors, but eventually, it would be best to step aside and allow more powerful data processors—artificial intelligence—to shape the universe.

Harari also describes an alternative philosophy to Dataism that could also steer the future of humanity, known as techno-humanism. Rather than allow AI to control the world, techno-humanists want to use technology to enhance human biology and help us better run the world.

Although Manson would likely argue that techno-humanism would just give fallible humans more power to abuse, it’s possible that technological enhancements would help us circumvent the problems with hope that Manson describes in his book. For example, if you were to use technology to enhance your consciousness enough to predict the future in significant detail, it’s possible that you could avoid being deluded by false hopes and make wiser decisions.