(Music to play while reading this chapter: ambient, trip-hop, chill-out, though not ‘Chill Out Classics.’)
You may have already noticed from the way we’ve been talking about F**k It, that it goes in one of two directions. Letting go, slowing down, giving up, is the first – and the most easily understood. In fact, most people assume F**k It is just about this. And it is actually the predominant quality of F**k It required in society today.
Look at anyone around you. Look in the mirror. And tell me what you see.
You probably see someone who is working too hard, who has little time for the things that really matter, who’s tired, often stressed, worrying about things that might never happen, striving to do better, to be better, always trying to get to next thing, the next level, that will hopefully end in their/your happiness.
So F**k It works very powerfully when you realize that most of those things you’re worrying about aren’t so important after all; that it’s possible to give up on stuff that’s causing you pain, to do less, relax more, and go with the flow of life instead of trying to make everything happen and work all the time.
For them/you, it can help to think about the idea of ‘taking your hands off the steering wheel.’ And it’s never been a better time to tell you why. Most of us believe that, unless we grip the steering wheel of life and steer in various directions in order to get to where we want to be, nothing will happen (or, even worse, we’ll crash). And the gripping of the steering wheel, the constant steering, and trying to work out which way to steer, can be very tiring – exhausting, in fact.
But what would happen if you took your hands off the wheel?
You’d crash, of course. Really? Well, maybe your passenger would intervene and help. Or maybe the car would steer itself. What? Yes. It’s possible. In fact, I read just yesterday that self-driving cars have just become legal in Nevada in the USA.
Isn’t that wonderful? When I talked about ‘taking your hands off the steering wheel’ in my first book, seven years ago, I had to use the analogy of being on a car ride for children at an amusement park. I remembered that when I was a small boy I believed I was actually driving, but slowly (and very disappointingly) realized that I wasn’t, and that the car was on a track, and would effectively steer itself. I made the point that, though it was disappointing to me then, it would probably be a great relief for most adults, who are tired of driving, to take their hands off the steering wheel, and let the car steer itself.
And now it is possible. Google, in fact, cracked it first. And it’s Google’s cars that will be the first to self-drive (well, with people in them, of course, checking that the software doesn’t fail or that decide they want to try to fly).
So, in the car of life that you’ve been driving – the one you thought you were in control of, and had to steer successfully to get anywhere – well, there’s a chance that, if you did take your hands off the steering wheel, it would drive itself. Life’s a Google Car.
Come on Google, let’s brand this one: ‘Google Life – relax, we’ll do the driving.’
But, yikes, how does that work? Surely, it would all go to pot if I simply stopped ‘steering.’ Well, try it. Take your hands off the wheel just for a little while and see what happens. If you’re trying hard to make something (anything) work, see what it’s like to ease off and not strive so much, to sit back and see what happens.
You may well be in for one helluva journey.
So this is how F**k It works for most of us: we’re trying too hard, striving too much, over-controlling, over-worrying, over-working, over-thinking, and over-cooking everything.
It’s time to take the F**k It chill pill, and slow it all down, give up a few things, do less, try less, control less (if at all), under-perform, trust it will work out, go with the flow, think less, and generally enjoy your life more.
But that’s only one direction: the one most people need to take.
Most people understand it. But some people say:
‘Yes, that’s all very well. But if I did all that, I’d get nothing done. I’d end up lying in bed then getting up and sitting on the sofa watching TV all the time, eating pizza, getting fat, lose my job, have no friends… It would be a disaster.’
And I reply:
‘Try it.’
If they did (which they won’t), but if they did, they would soon get bored of lying in bed, or watching TV, or vacationing, or doing nothing. And that’s when the next F**k It direction would kick in. Read on…