What to Live for

57 people had breakthroughs this week. Will the next one be you?

Two things for you to think about

Stop living for the emotional scraps of strangers’ opinions.
Start living for your own values and well-being.

“No one can make you feel inferior without your consent.” – Eleanor Roosevelt

Three things for you to ask yourself

When have you caught yourself living for the emotional scraps of strangers’ opinions? What did it cost you?

What would living for yourself look like instead?

One thing for you to try this week

Choose one area of your life where you’ve been living for others—maybe it’s how you spend your free time, the clothes you wear, or the opinions you hold back—and do something just for you this week. Let me know how it goes.

Last week’s breakthroughs

In last week’s newsletter, I asked you to do one thing you’re afraid to fail at…

Which is exactly what Josh has been up to:

Your prompt, ‘You’re not afraid of failing. You’re afraid of being seen failing,’ was both a challenge and an encouragement to me this week. Most of my life, I’ve been afraid of being seen for who I truly am. I’ve shape-shifted and changed my persona depending on the social settings because I wanted to ‘fit in.’ It makes me sad to think of all the opportunities I’ve missed out on. But thanks to my wife and to people like you, I’ve accepted the challenge to stop living in fear, and I’ve been taking steps to change. I’m 48 years old, and I’ve finally started putting myself out there. Over the past 18 months, I’ve started a project called Atlanta Storytellers, and I’ve accomplished more in these 18 months than I have in decades, all because of this new mentality of, ‘What’s the worst that can happen? If this fails, at least I will have tried and learned something new.’

I built a website, started a YouTube channel, and have created, produced, and hosted a unique series of shows here in Atlanta, all because I decided to stop being afraid and instead follow my passion. I have a new community of friends that I would have never met had I listened to the old me and all of my past fears. I’m grateful to you for your encouragement and for the challenges you give to people like me. Thanks for helping me trade my fear of failing in front of others for the freedom to live and grow.

Your challenge this week was to ‘do one thing you’re afraid to fail at and let me know how it goes.’ So, I’m sending you this email. In the past, I would have *never* sent an email like this. I would have convinced myself it was a waste of time because someone like Mark Manson wouldn’t care what someone like me was doing. I no longer believe that’s true. I do think you care, and I also believe in myself enough now to believe that what I’m doing matters. I’ve seen the results of doing the things I’ve been afraid of for all these years. I can’t wait to see where this journey takes me in the second half of my life!

Josh was not the only person who sent in a reply for the first time. Here’s another reader with her story of overcoming a different fear:

I don’t answer emails like this. Emails from someone I don’t know. Emails that ask me to go deeper and then talk about it. Emails that touch on truth and require me to be exposed.

Well, tough sh*t. Here I am, doing something new.

My marriage has been in trouble for the past several years. Blame it on menopause. Blame it on losing a job I loved for no good reason. Blame it on a partner who didn’t support me the way I needed it, so I was perpetually mad. Over time, we moved further and further apart, finally living in two locations and not talking. I was left to myself.

As it turns out, Myself was the person I was most afraid of needing. I didn’t know how to look inward without blaming outward. I was afraid that Myself was not up to the task, so I pinned my expectations for being OK on other people, like my partner and my grown kids. Even the dog, who suddenly gave me the cold shoulder.

Me and Myself finally had a reckoning.

One day, as my brain spinned through a thousand whirlpools of grief and fear, I had the visual image of drowning. Me, swirling down, down, down, hand outreached, gasping for breath and trying to keep my nose above water. I watched my mind’s concoction like it was a movie. ‘Help me! Somebody help me!! Why won’t anybody Help Me!’

Wait. I could help Me.

The image of drowning exploded as I reached in and helped Myself. My much younger Self. Suddenly, I had Age, Wisdom, Experience and Love, all reaching to grab the hand of a young girl, scared and floundering, and pulling her out of the water.

Did it fix my marriage? Nope. There was, and is, still lots to do there. But recently, my partner and I have been able to talk without rancor. I no longer resent his relationship with my kids. I am not a victim looking for a hero, because I found my hero. Right here in my heart. She has been growing all along. I trust her now, because she showed up.

Finally, Margaret from our Solved Membership community fought through what must be one of our biggest fears, confronting shame:

Today I acted on something I posted about a few days back. I had mentioned that when one of my sons was younger, he broke a small ceramic bunny, and that I had yelled at and shamed him, he was devastated and so was I. I was so upset at my overreaction and apologized to him.

When he was a teen I brought it up, he remembered it, I apologized again as it still bothered me. He said it was OK.

My son is now 37. Today I asked to chat with him a while, I took the little bunny with me. I asked if he remembered it. He said he did. I apologized again, told him I was ashamed of my behavior, that I had shamed and frightened him when he was so young, I asked him if we could talk about it as I don’t understand why it’s still troubling me.

We had a wonderful talk about shame, individual and generational. He opened up and shared what shame meant to him. We talked about the usefulness of shame and the negative side of it.

I was so grateful to have had this conversation with my son. I felt it was very kind and loving of him, that he was gracious. It drew us closer together.

I’m now over the broken bunny ear incident!

This month, Solved members like Margaret worked on understanding their shame and learning to live alongside it—through daily action prompts, deep dives from the podcast, and the encouragement of our thousands-strong community. Next up in October: Resilience.

Learn more or join The Solved Membership—the last membership you’ll ever need—here. I hope to see you there.

As always, send your breakthroughs by simply replying to this email. Let me know if you’d prefer to remain anonymous.

Until next week,

Mark Manson

#1 New York Times Bestselling Author
My Website – My Books – My YouTube Channel – My Podcast – My Community