How to Give More Fucks in Life

Dear friend,

If you’ve ever woken up, and felt, “What is the fucking point of living?” this letter is for you.

If you love your life, you can disregard this letter.

Don’t hide from reality

Ok friend.

To start, life is fucking hard. Fucking painful. For no reason, our loved ones will die. We often work hard, but are stuck with shitty jobs with stagnant wages. We turn on the tv or check Facebook, and it’s all fucking doom and gloom.

We’ve lost optimism. Hope. Everything looks dark.

Embrace the darkness

Of course this advice is just how I think. It might or might not help you.

For me, I embrace the darkness like Batman. Gotham City is my view of The World. The World is a shitty and dark place. Yet, how can we embrace the darkness…and make the best of the dark world we live in?

Smile.

What give me more hope in life: offering a simple smile to a stranger.

99% of strangers I smile at, always smile back.

A smile is free, and can give you optimism and hope in life.

Random act of kindness

Thanks to Cindy, she introduced the concept of a random act of kindness to me.

Pay the coffee of a stranger, or pay an extra dollar for the toll road for the person behind you.

Offer a random compliment to a stranger.

These small acts of kindness really cost little to nothing. Yet, they make you feel good.

To me, it is a win win situation.

You feel good about yourself for being nice to someone else. That other person feels good about themselves too. And that person will probably be a little more positive to the next person.

Now, isn’t this selfish? Of course it is. But is being selfish for the sake of helping others a bad thing? I don’t think so.

I call this “selfish altruism”– I boost my self ego by helping others. And others are being helped. Is anyone being hurt? No. Then why is it evil to be selfish?

I like helping others

To me, the only thing that keeps me going is helping others. To help more people.

When I help others, I have a sense of meaning and purpose in life. And of course, not everyone I help will appreciate me nor acknowledge me. But that’s cool. For me, if I can publish a blog post that can at least help 1 other human being on planet earth, I have done my job and can sleep at night.

To help others is:

Offer optimism or hope
To reduce suffering
To encourage or inspire someone else

Avoid things that make you passive

Another lesson, in giving more fucks in life… seek to AVOID things which cause you to become apathetic, weak, and disempowered.

For example, for myself, when I smoke weed, and I drink alcohol, I feel more lazy. I lose enthusiasm. I feel weaker. And I often get hangovers the next day, which makes me less productive.

Of course, I know some folks who are very productive with drugs and alcohol.

My suggestion:

If drugs and alcohol causes you to give fewer fucks in life about what is important than you, stop taking those drugs and drinking alcohol.

What to give a fuck about, and what NOT to give a fuck about

The point to make:

Give lots of fucks about what is important in your life.

So, don’t give a fuck about what others think of you, or your life mission. Don’t give a fuck about your clothes, car, or the number of zeros in your bank account.

Give MANY FUCKS and a MASSIVE FUCK about what drives you in life.

For myself, I give a LOT OF FUCKS about helping empower others, by producing information, writing and publishing and sharing free ebooks, free information, and free knowledge. I care a lot about OPENNESS and authenticity. Therefore, even though ERIC KIM is often an asshole, ERIC KIM IS AUTHENTIC AS FUCK. I will never censor myself when writing these letters to you. I wear my heart on my sleeve. Seeing me on YouTube, this blog, and real life is the same ERIC KIM. I don’t have multiple faces. And yes, I do curse in front of my mom.

NEO-STOICISM

I see myself as a “NEO-STOIC”. NEO means “new.” STOIC is a school of photography I like, which says “fuck you” to fate.

Anyways, I’m a “NEO” (new) Stoic because my beliefs are different; evolved.

I believe in “ethical” or “zen” capitalism. I believe in being ACTIVE as a Stoic, not just being some Buddhist recluse in a cave. I also use technology.

I like me.

To me, to live in today’s world as a NEO STOIC is to not let small, petty, or small shit bother you. To me, I’m indifferent to 99% of the world that I personally don’t have control over. For example, I don’t care for politics, because there isn’t much I can do to change public policy– but, I can promote pro-tolerance, and encourage openness. I can write about my personal immigrant narrative, to make my followers not be afraid of immigrants or refugees.

I can promote openness of information by keeping all the information on this website “open source.”

I am indifferent whether people “like” me or not. I only care whether I like myself or not.

I am tolerant to the viewpoints of others, unless they are oppressing or doing positive harm upon others. Therefore, I am NOT tolerant to terrorists or people who kill one another for ideological or political aims.

I am tolerant for everyone to have their own definition in photography and art. But I am NOT TOLERANT to fucking trolls on the internet who try to bully around other photographers and artists.

What does ERIC KIM want?

To me, love and tolerance are my life goals. And, I want to help others create more art, and to empower others.

I was very lucky, blessed, and fortunate in my personal life. Therefore to me I have given many fucks in my life because,

I was blessed with life, and I don’t want to waste my life.
I was blessed with opportunities, and therefore I want to open up opportunities for others.
I was blinded by ignorance, and now I have seen (some) of the light, I want to share that light with others.

Ultimately, if people choose to ignore me, that is cool. If people hate on me, that is cool. Everyone is entitled to their (non-hateful) opinion.

Personal remedies for giving more fucks in life

If you don’t give a lot of fucks in your life, but you want to have more fucks in life, some ideas:

Listen to empowering music: Nietzsche once said, “All music that makes you productive is good.” I agree. I get a lot of work done when I listen to KANYE WEST or JAY Z or KENDRICK LAMAR. No emo music for me.
Seek to help others more. The more you help others and build value for others, the more you help yourself.
PRODUCE MORE: I find more meaning in life by creating more stuff, publishing more, and CREATING more. I start feeling apathetic in life when I just zombie out on my phone or passively consuming media.
Cut out social media: I easily become envious of my friends who I perceive as more successful and richer than me. So by NOT using social media, I feel more focused, and better about myself. The better I feel about myself, the more I can focus on helping others. Therefore, (building my EGO in a positive way is a good thing.**

Once again friend, this is all my opinion and thoughts. Please please please, just take the parts that you like, and throw away the rest.

Assert your own dominance, your own opinion, and thoughts.

To join a positive community, join ERIC KIM FORUM.

BE STRONG,
ERIC