Save your Fucks!

WE ALL HAVE A LIMITED NUMBER OF FUCKS TO GIVE; PAY ATTENTION TO WHERE AND WHO YOU GIVE THEM TO.

In my life, I have given a fuck about many people and many things. I have also started not given a fuck about many people and many things. And those fucks I have not given have made all the difference.

You’re born with a ton of fucks to give, so you spend them like a kid with a credit card. You’re young, you have tons of energy. Everything is new and exciting. And everything seems to matter so much. You give fucks about your friends, about your grades, about your fashion sense, about strangers’ opinions. You give way too many fucks about way too many things. You have so many. Therefore, you give tons of fucks.

Then, as you get older, you’re down to maybe 10 fucks per month, and those fucks are pretty damn precious, so you learn to budget them. You allocate fucks to family, hobbies and career, but there aren’t enough fucks to give to the newest fads. Oh, someone at work has something they need my help with that’s outside my job title? I’ll do your best to allocate some fucks, but this month is pretty tight. I bet you would’ve liked to save your fucks from when you were younger but you can’t. It’s not your fault – fucks expire too quickly.

Then, at some point, you hit fuck insolvency. You're fuck faucet runs completely dry and you’re out of fucks to give. You’re getting like 1 fuck a year, and you have to make it last. So you go without, and even previously fuck-worthy things, you just can’t give a fuck. Some people run out really quickly, Some people have a fuck trust fund that pays out a decent amount even into old age.

It’s just basic Fuckonomics.

Essentially, we become more selective about the fucks we’re willing to give. This is something called ‘maturity.’ It’s nice, you should try it sometime. Maturity is what happens when one learns to only give a fuck about what’s truly fuckworthy.

Then, as we grow older and enter middle age, something else begins to change. Our energy levels drop. Our identities solidify. We know who we are and we no longer have a desire to change what now seems inevitable in our lives.

And in a strange way, this is liberating. We no longer need to give a fuck about everything. Life is just what it is. We now reserve our ever-dwindling fucks only for the most truly fuckworthy parts of our lives: our families, our best friends, our sex-life. And to our astonishment, this is enough. This simplification actually makes us really fucking happy.

No, there is no fuck recycler. So save your fucks!

This article is an excerpt from the mind blowing book, The Subtle Art of Not Giving a Fuck: A Counterintuitive Guide to Living A Good Life

Looking forward to this one!

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