F**k It: The Ultimate Spiritual Way

The problem for a lot of people is that they don't really know what they want. They have vague desire: to 'do something creative' or to earn more money or 'to be free', but they can't really pin down what it is precisely that they want. So they drift from one thing to another, enjoying some moments and hating others, but never really finding fulfillment or success. (..) This is why it's hard to lead a successful life (whatever that means to you) when you don't know what you want.

Every moment has infinite potential. Every new moment contains for you possibilities that you can't possibly imagine. Every day is a blank page that you could fill with the most beautiful drawings.

Maybe it's because we innately know that everything is impermanent that we so desperately cling to it. But cling we do. We know that our youth vanishes that we and our loved one will die one day, that whatever we have accumulated can easily be taken away from us, that one day our skills might not be wanted, that a day may come when our love might not be reciprocated. But we go on clinging. Everywhere we turn we are faced with impermanence. (..) The more we cling - of course - the more pain we feel as things fade, disappear, die around us. And sometimes the more we cling, the more these things happen. (..) The key to being able to let go of all the stuff you're holding on to is knowing that you'll be okay if you don't have it. And that's the truth. You can survive with very little. And though the passing of people and things can be painful, you will survive.

It goes something like this: I am one person among 6.5 billion people on Earth at the moment. That's one person among 6,500,000,000 people. That'a lot of Wembley Stadiums full of people, and even more double-decker buses (apparently the standard British measurements for size). And we live on an Earth that is spinning at 67,000 miles an hour through space around a sun that is the centre of our solar system (and our solar system is spinning around the centre of the Milky Way at 530,000 mph). Just our solar system (which is a tiny speck within the entire universe) is very big indeed. If Earth was a peppercorn and Jupiter was a chestnut (the standard American measurements), you'd have to place them 100 metres apart to get a sense of the real distance between us. And this universe is only one of many. In fact, the chances are that there are many, many more populated Earths - just like ours - in other universes. And that's just space. Have a look at time, too. If you're in for a good run, you may spend 85 years on this Earth. Man has been around for 100,000 years, so you're going to spend just 0.00085 percent of man's history living on this Earth. And Man's stay on Earth has been very short in the context of the life of the Earth (which is 4.5 billion years old): if the Earth had been around for the equivalent of a day (with the Big Bang kicking it all off at midnight), humans didn't turn up until 11.59.58 p.m. That means we've only been around for the last two seconds. A lifetime is gone in a flash. There are relatively few people on this Earth that were here 100 years ago. Just as you'll be gone (relatively) soon. So, with just the briefest look at the spatial and temporal context of our lives, we are utterly insignificant. As the Perspective Machine lifts up so far above the woods that we forget what the word means, we see just one moving light. It is beautiful. A small, gently glowing light. It is a firefly lost somewhere in the cosmos. And a firefly - on Earth - lives for just one night. It glows beautifully, then goes out. And up there so high in our Perspective Machine we realize that our lives are really just like that of the firefly. Except the air is full of 6.5 billion fireflies. They're glowing beautifully for one night. Then they are gone. So, Fuck It, you might as well REALLY glow.

The problem with a plan is that you fill up the blank page of a new day with a 'to-do' list before you get there. And if you're not careful there's no room for anything else. A plan, especially a very focused one, narrows down the possibilies of the future to just a couple of things: that things either go to plan, or they don't.

To lead a successful life, then, it's a good idea to work out what you really want. Then get together some plans. Then set some goals.

There are two apparently opposing forces that govern our lives. No, not good and evil. Love and fear. That's right: the opposite of love is not hate, but fear

In the dance of life, pull down your own oxygen mask first, then take a deep breath and help everyone else. They’ll thank you for it, believe me.

So just say F**k It to it all. Just do what the hell you want.

And that’s what F**k It does. Sometimes things feel as if they’re just too painful to bear. And some part of you just gives up caring. The thing that mattered so much, somehow doesn’t matter any more. And the freedom that comes from that is a blast and a half.

Every moment has infinite potential. Every new moment for you contains possibilities that you can’t possibly imagine. Every day is a blank page that you could fill with the most beautiful drawings.

If you ignore tension in your body, though, it does what children (and some adults) do when they’re ignored: it starts shouting, screaming and generally misbehaving. This misbehaviour takes the form of aching necks, headaches, backaches, etc. So have a go at listening to your body before it starts to shout for your attention.

It’s also worth accepting that – to one degree or another, and like every other human being walking this Earth – you’re fucked up. You have emotional problems, anxieties, neuroses, fears, low self-confidence…

This is the way we’re taught early in our lives about how to interpret pain. When we experience pain, the way the people around us respond to it then teaches us to respond in a similar way.

What seems to happen is that pain tries to let us know it needs listening to in different ways. And one way it tries is through illness. In

So say F**k It to whatever you want to be. And just be who you are. There is no need to be anything else. There is no need to self-develop, or improve. There is no need to be like anyone else. You

If you lost everything, you wouldn’t die. So

We say F**k It to God and worship the devil instead.

I swapped countries. I now live in a warmer, more relaxed, more laid-back, happier, less competitive country (Italy), and I’m happy with that. When I go back to the UK I find it – in about equal measures – inspiring, motivating, alive, buzzing… but also overcrowded, over-competitive, striving, messy, uptight and neurotic.

So start saying F**k It to pain. When you respond to pain, you are only acting out a conditioned response. And all conditioned responses are reversible. When you encounter any pain, counter your immediate response by just saying F**k It.

The problem with life – as we now know – is that anything that means something to us has the potential for pain. So it’s possible to develop fears for anything and everything.

If my life means so little, then F**k It, I might as well go for it and just have a laugh.

Life is not perfect. That's the point. [..] Life can be very good, and then it can be very shit.

Fear growws from experience of pain.

Your freedom reminds everyone else what a prison they're living in.

Life is pain and pleasure in equal measure.

The more you value yourself, the more the world will value you.

The mind has an addiction to the fears around the things that matter.

Find the source of pleasure inside yourself and you'll never be bored