Content warning: this article includes explicit language.
Life is short, so why waste it on things or people who you aren’t absolutely crazy about, right? According to Mark Manson and The Law of “Fuck Yes or No,” that’s the best way to live.
Manson created this law to eliminate the gray area of dating. No more wondering if the other person feels the same way that you do, or playing pointless games with each other. When it comes down to it, do you think “fuck yes” about the relationship? Anything less isn’t good enough. And why would you ever want to be with someone who doesn’t feel that way about you?
“The point is: both you and the other person need to be fuck yes about something (and it must be the same thing), otherwise you’re just wasting your time.” -Mark Manson
While this theory could be the secret ingredient to the fuckboy repellent we have all been waiting for, what if it could get better? What if we expand this mindset outside of the dating world and use it in our everyday lives? After all, it isn’t just our love lives that could benefit from being a bit choosier. Often times we get caught up in our everyday lives and take on a lot of tasks simply because we think we should. We could de-clutter our schedules and our minds simply by only doing things we genuinely want to do.
Now, I don’t mean skip class whenever you feel like it and never step foot inside a dentist’s office ever again (because we can all agree that’s the worst place ever). Some things are a must, but maybe it’s time to purge our social calendars of events we have to make an appearance at because we feel like we have to. While I’m sure your second cousin who you’ve met twice would love you to be at her 30th birthday party, maybe it is time to free ourselves of the burden of attending events simply to be polite.
If we apply this philosophy to our professional or educational lives as well, we can stop wasting our time putting energy into things we don’t care about and focus more on our true passions in life. Study something that you are excited about. We, as humans, tend to be much better at things when we feel personally invested. At the end of the day, it’s better to be a garbage man who loves his job and is excited about going to work every day than a miserable doctor.
After years of being told to do things because you have to—yes I’m looking at you, Mom—this idea might sound like complete blasphemy, but think of all the great things it could lead to if we only put our time and energy into things we genuinely care about. Not crazy about your major? Switch it. Feel like you are stuck at a dead end job? Look for a new one. Putting too much effort into a shitty friendship? Cut them off. If you aren’t saying fuck yes to something, then you should be saying no.