Chapter 236 - To Not Give A F.u.c.k About Adversity, You Must First Give A F.u.c.k About Something More Important Than Adversity[3]

Eric Hoffer once wrote: "A man is likely to mind his own business when it is worth minding. When it is not, he takes his mind off his own meaningless affairs by minding other people's business."

The problem with people who hand out f.u.c.ks like ice cream at a goddamn summer camp is that they don't have anything more f.u.c.kworthy to dedicate their f.u.c.ks to.

Think for a second. You're at a grocery store. And there's an elderly lady screaming at the cashier, berating him for not accepting her 30-cent coupon. Why does this lady give a f.u.c.k? It's just 30 cents.

Well, I'll tell you why. That old lady probably doesn't have anything better to do with her days than to sit at home cutting out coupons all morning. She's old and lonely. Her kids are d.i.c.kheads and never visit. She hasn't had s.e.x in over 30 years. Her pension is on its last legs and she's probably going to die in a diaper thinking she's in Candyland. She can't fart without extreme lower back pain. She can't even watch TV for more than 15 minutes without falling asleep or forgetting the main plotline.

So she snips coupons. That's all she's got. It's her and her damn coupons. All day, every day. It's all she can give a f.u.c.k about because there is nothing else to give a f.u.c.k about. And so when that pimply-faced 17-year-old cashier refuses to accept one of them, when he defends his cash register's purity the way knights used to defend maidens' v.i.r.g.i.nities, you can damn well bet granny is going to erupt and verbally hulk smash his f.u.c.k.i.n.g face in. Eighty years of f.u.c.ks will rain down all at once, like a fiery hailstorm of "Back in my day" and "People used to show more respect" stories, boring the world around her to tears in her creaking and wobbly voice.

If you find yourself consistently giving too many f.u.c.ks about trivial shit that bothers you — your ex-girlfriend's new Facebook picture, how quickly the batteries die in the TV remote, missing out on yet another 2-for-1 sale on hand sanitizer — chances are you don't have much going on in your life to give a legitimate f.u.c.k about. And that's your real problem. Not the hand sanitizer.

Way too many f.u.c.ks given.

In life, our f.u.c.ks must be spent on something. There really is no such thing as not giving a f.u.c.k. The question is simply how we each choose to allot our f.u.c.ks. You only get a limited number of f.u.c.ks to give over your lifetime, so you must spend them with care. As my father used to say, "F.u.c.ks don't grow on trees, Mark." OK, he never actually said that. But f.u.c.k it, pretend like he did. The point is that f.u.c.ks have to be earned and then invested wisely. F.u.c.ks are cultivated like a beautiful f.u.c.k.i.n.g garden, where if you f.u.c.k shit up and the f.u.c.ks get f.u.c.k.i.e.d, then you've f.u.c.k.i.n.g f.u.c.k.i.e.d your f.u.c.ks all the f.u.c.k up.