The Subtle Art Of Not Giving a Fck

Summary part 6
Problems Can Be Good Or Bad, Values Too
Not all problems are bad. In fact, problems are necessary to achieve
happiness. However, this does not mean that all problems are good.

Sometimes we are faced with bad problems, and these problems are
the result of bad values.

To illustrate this point, Manson uses contrasting anecdotes. The first

is the story of Dave Mustaine, a guitarist who was kicked out of the
band Metallica by the time they started to get big.

Mustaine swore that he would start his own band and that it would
be more successful than Metallica. He formed the band Megadeth
and sold more than 25 million albums.

However, even though he had become a famous millionaire,

Mustaine still felt like a failure because Metallica has sold more than
150 million albums.

To anyone, Mustaine was successful, but to himself, he was a failure.

The second story is that of Pete Best, the drummer who was kicked
out of the Beatles as soon as they reached success.

Best did not become a famous musician, but he considered himself

successful and said that being kicked out of the Beatles was the best
thing that could have happened to him because it allowed him to
meet his wife and start a family.

The difference between Mustaine and Best is that Best has chosen
better values to measure his failures and successes.

Manson defines bad values as superstitious, socially destructive and

not immediate or uncontrollable.
It would be, for example, Mustaine’s desire to form a band better
than Metallica but could not control which band would be more
popular.

On the other hand, Manson defines good values as realistic, socially

constructive, and immediate or controllable.

That would be the case with Best who valued spending time with his
family – something he was able to control every day of his life and
which helped him to bond with his loved ones.

Good values include things like honesty, creativity, and charity. Bad
values include desires like becoming wealthy or being better than
someone else.

Choosing good values means choosing good problems.

Valuing honesty may mean having painful or unpleasant

confrontations, but these confrontations will lead you to growth,
while lies lead to destruction and loss of confidence.

To avoid bad problems, we must spend some time defining our

values and determining if they are good values.