Mark Manson Quotes

The paradox of choice: the more options we're given, the less satisfied we become with whatever we choose, because we're aware of all the other options we're potentially forfeiting. ...Pursuing a breadth of experience denies us the opportunity to experience the rewards of depth of experience. ...commitment, in its own way, offers a wealth of opportunity and experiences that would otherwise never be available to me, no matter where I went or what I did. When you're pursuing a wide breadth of experience, there are diminishing returns to each new adventure.

We must all give a fuck about something. To not give a fuck about anything is still to give a fuck about something.

The greatest romantic relationships are when both people think they're the one who got lucky

Sometimes it’s not social anxiety.

Sometimes the people around you just suck.

Rather, our minds simply amplify (or minimize) our problems to fit the degree of stress we expect to experience. Material progress and security do not necessarily relax us or make it easier to hope for the future. On the contrary, it appears that perhaps by removing healthy adversity and challenge, people struggle even more. They become more selfish and more childish. They fail to develop and mature out of adolescence. They remain further removed from any virtue. They see mountains where there are molehills. And they scream at each other as though the world were one endless stream of spilled milk.

Any attempt to escape the negative, to avoid it or quash it or silence it, only backfires. The avoidance of suffering is a form of suffering. The avoidance of struggle is a struggle. The denial of failure is a failure. Hiding what is shameful is itself a form of shame.

I wanted the reward and not the struggle. I wanted the result and not the process. I was in love not with the fight but only the victory.
And life doesn't work that way.

Some of the most difficult and stressful moments of our lives also end up being the most formative and motivating. Some of the best and most gratifying experiences of our lives are also the most distracting and demotivating. Don’t trust your conception of positive/negative experiences.

George Orwell said that to see what’s in front of one’s nose requires a constant struggle. Well, the solution to our stress and anxiety is right there in front of our noses, and we’re too busy watching porn and advertisements for ab machines that don’t work, wondering why we’re not banging a hot blonde with a rocking six-pack, to notice.

And I don't care how scientific you think you are or how many letters you have after your name, you're one of us, bucko. You're a crazy Feeling Brain-piloted meat robot just like the rest of us.

Ultimately, the most meaningful freedom in your life comes from your commitments, the things in life for which you have chosen to sacrifice.

They feel that they need to be great to be accepted in a world that broadcasts only the extraordinary.

The best moments of your life won’t look like the best moments of your life while they’re happening.

We are always in the process of approaching truth and perfection without actually ever reaching truth or perfection.

Because construing everything in life so as to make yourself out to be constantly victimized requires just as much selfishness as the opposite. It takes just as much energy and delusional self-aggrandizing to maintain the belief that one has insurmountable problems as that one has no problems at all.