The Life Changing Magic of Not Giving a F*ck: How to Stop Spending Time You Don’t Have with People You Don’t Like Doing Things You Don’t Want to Do by Sarah Knight

Since I just posted on Spark Joy, I thought that it was the appropriate time for a review of this one.

Full title, it’s a whopper and very descriptive of the book’s contents: The Life-Changing Magic of Not Giving a F*ck: How to Stop Spending Time You Don’t Have with People You Don’t Like Doing Things You Don’t Want to Do.

F-bombs aplenty in this parody of Marie Kondo’s international best seller about tidying. If you can look past the obvious language thing, Knight gives some fairly solid advice. She counsels readers to not care so much about what others think and give that mental energy to yourself. You’ll be surprised what you can accomplish.

“Please listen when I say that the shame and guilt you feel when you’re trying so hard to not give a f***? It’s usually not because you are wrong to not give that f***. It’s because you’re worried about what other people might think about your decision. And guess what? You have no control over what other people think.”pg 26

See? She reminded me of a more foul-mouthed Byron Katie.

Sometimes she manages to string together two whole sentences without the F-word. Check it out: “You can sidestep the prospect of hurt feelings entirely when you view your conflict through the lens of simple, emotionless opinion. NotSorry (Knight’s method) is all about simple, emotionless opinions.” pg 31.

Beyond managing your own mind, she branches out to give advice to parents: “One mother responded from the perspective of teaching her own kids what to give a f*** about: As someone who grew up in a household full of guilt, I think it’s important for our kids to know that they can make decisions about what to care about, and that they don’t need to pay attention to the approval or condescension of other people in deciding how to live their lives.”pg 92.

I can get behind that idea.

Then we move right along to shades of Eckhart Tolle and The Power of Now: A Guide to Spiritual Enlightenment with contemplating the meaning of existence and its temporariness: “The reality is, unless we’ve been given a ballpark figure by a reputable physician (and sometimes not even then), not a single one of us knows when we’re going to shuffle off this mortal coil. It’s morbid, but it’s true. Tomorrow you could get hit by a bus, or mauled by a pack of wolves, or be scared to death by a clown. When you think about it like that, don’t you want to make every second count? pg 184.

Sarah Knight’s book, in my opinion, doesn’t have the life-changing magic of the other book, but she’s got some interesting thoughts that I believe are true and, sometimes, rather funny. But make sure to bring your sense of humor with you when you pick this one up because the author doesn’t give a … well, you know.

Thanks for reading!

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