Bests & Worsts Reviews from Amazon

Not a verified purchase, as this book was gifted to me by a co-worker this Christmas. He told me this book "changed his life" and he thought I'd get a lot out of it. Well, I did get something out of it for sure - a good chuckle (as well as a glimpse into the emotional development of my co-worker). Now don't get me wrong, there are some decent principles in this book: staying away from social media, putting effort into things that actually matter, being willing to suffer for things you really want, etc - but nothing even remotely earth shattering for anyone with any sense of self-awareness. The part that made me laugh was the irony in the book itself. Manson talks a lot about entitlement in this book and at one point speaks of a hypothetical 25 year old billing himself as a life coach, without having really lived any life at all. He talks about how entitled and delusional this character is, all the while missing the fact that he is a 32 year old bro who's lived a privileged life, who’s been loved and supported by his parents and bankrolled through college and while circumnavigating the globe. He is a finance major with absolutely no education or experience in psychology, someone who has only begun to live and not yet experienced any of the truly devastating losses that others have endured. And here this dude is writing a self help book, telling all of us how we should be living our lives. Manson says none of us are special, we’re all totally run-of-the-mill, but he somehow thinks he’s special. So special that at 32, with no real experience in anything, he’s solved all of the mysteries of the world. He alone knows the key to true happiness. That elusive thing that humans have been striving for since the beginning of time? Yep, Mark Manson figured it out. Talk about entitled and delusional! The author comes across as an arrogant, over-inflated, self-congratulatory windbag with a penchant for way over-stating his appeal to the opposite sex. Yeah, yeah, I know it's a #1 New York Times Best Seller, but look around you. We live in a world where the Kardashians are idolized and Donald Trump was elected President. Clearly we're off the rails.