Why 'The Subtle Art of Not Giving a F***' is a bestseller

By Yun Suh-young

While searching for a book to write about for this week's page, I was going through a list of books on online bookshops. One that caught my eye was topping the bestselling list on almost every single website. It was "The Subtle Art of Not Giving a F***."

Although the title in Korean was less intriguing, the provocative English title next to it said it all. I wanted to know why this was topping bestseller lists (other than for its title) for over a month at online and offline bookstores after the book came out in Korean in late October. The original English version came out in September last year.

Not surprisingly, when I went to Kyobo, the largest bookstore in the city, the book was near the entrance, near the main aisle, an eye-catching location coupled with a bright orange cover.

Honestly, I didn't expect much from this book, thinking that bestselling self-help books are all pretty much the same, regurgitating mundane and cliche advice that we are already used to seeing in many other books.

This book flipped that around.

From the start, it admits it's not one of those self-help books that you've been used to and it won't try to be. It says it's not about giving a sermon on positivity, or the power of positive thinking; rather, it said it was about admitting and accepting the negativity in life to move forward and grow. It aims to do the exact opposite of what self-help books have been doing -- feeding you with encouraging, hopeful and rainbow-colored words.

In fact, the book does just the opposite. It is direct with words -- at times provocative and vulgar (not too much in Korean though) -- and is piercing to the core. It doesn't sugar coat. It's raw and honest. But at the same time, it's insanely inspirational and hopeful. Beneath the swear words are enlightened messages and insights on the meaning of life and how to live, based on the author's own experience.

The author, Mark Manson, has an interesting personal history. He considers himself a "loser" who had a rollercoaster childhood and youth -- engulfed in drugs, sex and superficial pleasures. His life transformed when a friend died in front of him. He began to take life seriously. But another traumatic event hit him. Just when he was beginning college and getting his life on track with a diligent and sincere attitude, his parents divorced. After graduating from college, he didn't have a job for a long time. Once he did, he quit in six weeks to start his own business, which didn't take off for years.

The book is a sincere and honest reflection on his life, through which he gives advice to people about how to reflect on their lives and live meaningfully.

To do that, there are some painful things that we must accept -- the fact that we're wrong.

A human mind is full of errors and we have to accept that, he says in the book.

"We are always wrong. When we're wrong, we can change. When we're wrong, we can grow."

His words are direct: if you believe you know everything, you won't learn anything, but if you accept your ignorance, you begin to learn. The only way to solving problems is accepting your wrongdoings. If you don't change the way you see yourself, you can't overcome anxiety or avoidance. In other words, you can't change yourself.

Everyone lies to themselves and to others and no one is an exception. We hear advice like "believe in yourself" and "do what your heart tells you" but to solve problems, you have to believe less in yourself and doubt your intentions and motivations more. If humans are all imperfect, isn't it more rational to scrutinize your beliefs and hypotheses to improve?

So this book is about how to change your life for the better, to improve, to grow, and how to focus on things that are meaningful. Words he uses are shockingly direct and at times crude, but they hit you with an enlightening pang in the head.

No wonder it became a bestseller -- just like the anecdote of the "loser" writer Charles Bukowski he mentions in the beginning of the book, this book rose to fame precisely because Mark Manson set aside his ego and revealed what he learned from his errors to help others to the light.