I only have so many fucks to give
An Extracted Chapter from Unfussy Life
My first book, Unfussy Life: An Intuitive Approach to Navigating Change, turns THREE on Friday.
To celebrate, I’m sharing one extracted chapter daily through Saturday. Vote for the ones you want to read here!
And, the ebook is free on Amazon through Saturday too. Please share and enjoy!
Alright, here’s one of the extracted chapters…
Psst… Read until the end and I’ll share some insights on why I pulled this one out.
Originally written in 2018.
I only have so many fucks to give
Fucks are just like willpower. I only have so much of it to use each day before I’ve used them all up and have nothing left for the stuff I actually want to give a fuck for.
You could have wasted all your fucks on the troll who jumped into a Facebook discussion, and you let it go there, so it got ugly. You gave too many fucks on your way to work. You were late; your kid couldn’t find his socks, and the oatmeal was too runny. Fucks all over the place.
You sit in traffic, giving a fuck about traffic and the jackass behind you who’s trying to swerve around you and get in front of you. Not today, asshole! You’ve still got some fucks left.
Sit in a boring ass meeting or listen to a rant that you give zero fucks about, only to arrive home at the end of the day exhausted and fuck less.
”What do you want for dinner?” Your partner asks.
“Nothing. I don’t give a fuck.” I can tell you I’ve heard that exact line from my husband after a day when he gave all his fucks away. It's not said in a mean way, just that he’s a New Yorker and swears a lot.
Save your fucks for a rainy day.
You have limited fucks to give. Use them wisely. I’m all for the abundance mindset, you know, pretending I'm super rich when there’s only $100 left in my checking account. Giving a fuck about these things means stressing about them.
When did we become such a whiny group of entitled people who act like it’s our God-given right to give a fuck?
Setting expectations low is often a good way to get through your life without becoming a giant stress ball.
Pretend you have five single dollar bills in your wallet today. Those are your fucks. You have five bucks (fucks) to spend that day. Give a fuck about Starbucks fucking up your latte? Take a dollar from your wallet and leave it in the tip jar. When you’re out of fucks for the day, you have to stop giving them out. People will be vying for your fucks constantly, but you can't give them away freely because you’re all out.
Not giving a fuck isn’t about being complacent. It's about caring about things that matter and providing the appropriate level of fucks to the cause.
You’re not suddenly going to become a pushover or someone who acts like a doormat. Just like saying “no” strategically and often, you're going to give fewer fucks. Not giving a fuck is the equivalent of saying no. We all know that saying yes too much gets us all in a pickle. Say yes too much, and we end up overcommitted, overscheduled, and running around like asshats, not even sure where we're running to or why we’re running there.
That's when you become the old lady who approached me when I was pregnant with my oldest in the lunchroom at work and said, “Don’t worry, they won't remember that you’re gone away and working all the time.” (I wrote about her later).1
Whoah. Our fucks were obviously not aligned here. I did, in fact, give a fuck about becoming a work monster and spending more time with my family than with a bunch of crusty people that didn't want to be with their families anyway.
Why I removed this chapter
It didn’t sit well with me. And without substantial edits, it wouldn’t fit well into the rest of the essays in the book. There wasn’t a single good story to go along with the advice here. And it felt ranty — 28 instances of “fuck” in one chapter alone was ghost pepper spicy, and I was going for jalapeno. I was definitely in a ghost-pepper mood when I drafted this. Mostly, when it came time to decide about this chapter, I asked myself, “Will this add value to the book?” The answer was “no,” so out it came.
Grab the Unfussy Life ebook free on Amazon through April 13.
Finding the Feminine Balance 💃
When embarking on a healing journey, I started seeing the term “divine feminine.” Feminine… That word had brought up negative connotations for me. In the past, I saw feminine traits as passive, weak, small, and quiet. Not getting things done. Not worthy.