Key Takeaways
- You meet a lot of interesting and smart people when you run an online business and travel the world. One of the people I’ve met is best-selling author
- His first book, The Subtle Art of Not Giving a F*ck, became a runaway hit, selling over 8 million copies. (He wrote a post about how travel made him t
- Now, Mark has a new book out today called, Everything is F*cked: A Book About Hope. I received a copy to read in advance and it’s a really incredible
You meet a lot of interesting and smart people when you run an online business and travel the world. One of the people we’ve connected with is best-selling author Mark Manson. We had orbited each other for many years and finally met when he moved to New York City.
We’ve been “real life” friends ever since.
His first book, The Subtle Art of Not Giving a F*ck, became a runaway hit, selling over 8 million copies. (He wrote a post about how travel shaped his personal growth and worldview—the foundation for that book.)
Now, Mark has a new book out today called Everything is F*cked: A Book About Hope. We received a copy to read in advance and found it to be a deeply thoughtful exploration of philosophy, meaning, and resilience in turbulent times. It offered fresh perspectives on issues many travelers grapple with—identity, connection, purpose, and cultural humility.
Today, Route for Less sits down with Mark to discuss his new work.
Route for Less: You have a new book out, Everything is F*cked: A Book About Hope. Let’s talk about it. What would you say the core of this book is about?
Mark Manson: At its heart, this book is a look at how to develop and maintain a sense of hope for ourselves and the world—and how these hopes affect us. We generally see hope as an unequivocally “good” thing, but I call that idea into question in this book.
Would it be considered a follow-up to The Subtle Art?
I’ve been calling it an “expansion” of the ideas from Subtle Art. I think it’s a deeper analysis and more complex application of the same concepts—values, pain/suffering, and our definitions of success. It’s kind of like the calculus to Subtle Art’s algebra—or the chess to its checkers.
What inspired you to write this book?
Well, just looking around at what is going on in the world. We’re living in a weird time: materially, the world as a whole is the best it’s ever been (less poverty, less violence, more wealth, longer lifespans, etc.), yet mentally and emotionally, people are struggling more than ever to find hope and meaning in their lives.
And what’s interesting is that it’s the people from the wealthiest and most stable parts of the world who are experiencing these philosophical struggles the most.
On top of that, I’ve noticed in my own life—as an older millennial—that many of the promises of my youth have turned out pretty ugly. From the internet to civic institutions, to assumptions about relationships, friendships, and community, it feels like there’s a lot to be justifiably upset about—yet things are objectively better.
I’ve had my own struggles with finding meaning and hope in my own life, despite the fact that, on paper, everything is awesome. So, in that way, this book is kind of my own way to sort through these issues.
Since this is a travel website, let’s talk about your book and travel. How can travel make us less f*cked? Or can it?
I think anything that increases human empathy is hugely important and beneficial at the moment. I also think anything that can cause you to confront your own value systems and question them is incredibly useful.
Travel does both of those things very well.
It’s a bit ironic that by connecting the world more than ever before, we’ve also come to objectify cultures more than ever before. Everything is about “the ‘Gram,” so to speak. I think a highly conscious and culturally engaged form of travel is still paramount.
Like anything, travel can become an escape from one’s problems rather than a pursuit of some higher understanding. So, it’s important to always make sure you’re on the right side of that equation.
One aspect of the book we found really interesting was the formula for life and how it relates to being a better person (especially in relation to travel). Can you describe this idea a little bit?
The Formula of Humanity comes from the philosopher Emmanuel Kant and essentially says that the driving force behind all of our decisions and actions should always be people—that more than emotions, more than culture, more than group loyalties, our first principle should always be to treat people (both ourselves and others) with dignity and respect.
And I think travel forces one to practice this.
It’s easy to sit on one side of the world and criticize people on the other. But when you go there and discover that 99% of the people are good, decent people and actually value the same things you do, it makes empathy more possible.
What can people learn from your book that they can apply to their lives?
I think there are five points that people can really apply to their own life:
- Why self-discipline requires understanding your own emotions.
- Why trauma and loss cause emotional dysfunction and how we can overcome that dysfunction.
- How every belief system is ultimately a little bit religious and we need to be careful about that.
- How to be more resilient.
- How to be freer in a world of constant distraction and diversion.
You talk a lot about how our feelings brain being in control and that we live in a feelings economy, where emotions run rampant. Can travel temper that in any way? Can travel show us how not to be keyboard warriors?
Unfortunately, there’s no way to NOT be irrational and emotional, as much as we’d sometimes like to. The key is to not resist or attempt to change our emotions but simply work with them, rather than against them. Things like anger, anxiety or even despair can be highly useful if channeled properly. The key is to develop the skill-set to channel them.
I think like a lot of things, travel amplifies who you already are. If you’re selfish and intolerant, then your travel experiences will reflect that. If you’re magnanimous or curious, then they will reflect that. A way that travel can
