Book Reivew: The Life-Changing Magic of Not Giving a F*ck: How to Stop Spending Time You Don't Have with People You Don't Like Doing Things You Don't Want to Do by Sarah Knight

The Life-Changing Magic of Not Giving a F*ck: How to Stop Spending Time You Don't Have with People You Don't Like Doing Things You Don't Want to DoThe Life-Changing Magic of Not Giving a F*ck: How to Stop Spending Time You Don't Have with People You Don't Like Doing Things You Don't Want to Do by Sarah Knight
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

This little book is a hoot! In the midst of the funny, there are some very good lessons to be learned.

Sarah Knight starts off the book with a mission statement:

"The Life Changing Magic of Not Giving a F*ck" is for all of us who work too much, play too little, and never have enough time to devote to the people and things that truly make us happy."

The author is a Harvard-educated former editor, who quit her corporate job to go freelance - to stop taking a 45 minute commute two times a day, sleep in, and have more time with her husband and for the things she wanted to do. She acknowledges that everyone can't just quit their jobs, but gives examples of ways to stop wasting time at work with useless meetings and memos, and how to stop attending coworker functions without causing offense.

She explains how to replace "feelings" with "opinions", therefore reducing the chances of making people mad at you in your journey to freedom. She breaks the chapters down into short, pithy, sections. This book is a "practical parody" - it's funny, but it also has the ring of a great truth.

Knight came to her epiphany via the famous book by Mari Kondo, "The Life Changing Magic of Tidying Up" - as she folded, thanked and discarded socks, she realized that the same concepts could be applied to day-to day life - you can discard the activities (and people) that make you unhappy and anxious and start doing what you want to do, in a polite and orderly way. This allows you to politely decline invitations, decline to become embroiled in pointless debates, and spend your "f*ck budget" on things and people that matter to you.

I found myself smiling and reading sections aloud to my husband as I went along, laughing out loud and thinking, too. If you are a person who can't say no, who feels overburdened and overwhelmed by life, this is the book for you.



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