Mark Manson

“Less fear. Less fear. Less fear. I am about to turn 50 next year, and I am just getting that lesson. Fear was such a detrimental driving force in my life at 30. It impacted my marriage, my career, my self-image in a fiercely negative manner. I was guilty of: Assuming conversations that others might be having about me. Thinking that I might fail. Wondering what the outcome might be. If I could do it again, I would have risked more.”

Romance is like religion in that it’s completely illogical, but that doesn’t stop people from giving their lives over to it.

I know it’s not what the cool kids like to do, but I like to read non-fiction. Lots of non-fiction. And my favorite moments reading non-fiction are when a book bitchslaps my brain and reconfigures my entire understanding of reality and my place within it. I love that. It’s like a mind orgasm.

Come up with three ways your life could be way, way, way worse. There’s always a worse.

Nobody wins on Valentine’s Day. The holiday puts everyone in an awkward situation. If you’re not seeing anybody then it’s an incessant and unnecessary reminder of your solitude.

We seem to live in a culture today where people are more concerned with appearing to be something important rather than actually being something important.

Here are seven things we should have learned as teenagers, but didn’t.

Fortunately, there’s been a lot of psychological research into healthy and happy relationships the past few decades and there are some general principles that keep popping up consistently that most people are unaware of or don’t follow.

What would a month in blogging be without yet another obligatory “X Things that Blah Blah Blah” post for all of you and your friends to share? Because reading these days is just too boring unless it’s put into an easily-digestible list form.

Research shows that social isolation is more harmful than alcoholism or smoking. Depression and stress are related with all sorts of terrible physical issues.

The reason most STD information is absolutely terrifying is because 1) terrifying information sells in the media and 2) religious nuts don’t want anybody to have fun.

OK, imagine Las Vegas, except it’s on a small island in the Mediterranean. Then replace the cheesy casinos with crazy beach parties, make the clubs the best and biggest in the world, and then fill it with drunk English kids and beautiful Spanish people.

When dating foreign women, there’s an avalanche of novelty hitting you constantly. Big things and little things.

In short, our unconscious is wired to seek out members of the opposite sex who it believes will fulfill our unfulfilled emotional needs, to fill in the gaps of the love and nurturing we missed out on as kids.

After a while, our brains become desensitized and develop a need for higher and higher stimuli in order to reach the same arousal and excitement.

Sex can be a personally liberating experience or it can be addictive and/or unhealthy.

Having open, intimate conversations with someone where you’re able to openly talk about one another’s flaws without resorting to blaming or shaming is possibly the hardest thing to do in any relationship.

The fact remains, if all of your relationships end in psychological ruin, then that says more about you and less about the entire female population. Your sample size sucks. And your ability to choose a romantic partner sucks.