Sunday 9 September 2012

F**k It: The Ultimate Spiritual Way, John C. Parkin

The F word in the title, huh? It must be worth a read!
I decided to look into this book after someone posted it on Facebook. I've always cringed at the phrase 'self help' and would never be seen dead in that section of Waterstones, but the Kindle has allowed me to explore new areas without anyone knowing. Haha! That's right, I can read self help books, erotic chick lit, even the bible and no-one will know.
At the beginning of the year I read The Secret, and enjoyed it in part but found the majority of it incredibly cheesy. Also it focused far too much on money. Of course we all want money, but I think the idea of being able to 'make money come to you' is quite gross. Like saying all poor or starving people just lack The Secret. And money often doesn't equal happiness anyway.
Fuck It, on the other hand, was much more up my street. The way of life involves realising how insignificant we and our problems are in the grand scheme of things and through this developing the ability to say 'Fuck It' and not worry. It talks about ways to relax and how to implement the Fuck It way in different areas of life. I particularly liked the part about not beating yourself up for not reaching certain goals, or for not doing things when you expected to. It's all about just letting things happen whenever, really. John C. Parkin is a bit cynical (maybe cos he's English) which made everything easier to read (for me, an ultimate cynic at heart). He's spent a lot of his life studying Eastern religion, and has taken a lot of it on board but with a very Western twist. He makes things seem achievable, rather than leaving you feeling like the ideas are too spiritual. For example he calls meditating 'sitting and thinking for a while.' And he's very aware of himself, his views and how not everything works for everyone. After explaining something he'll say something like- but not all of this will relate to you, so pick and choose what you think is good, and if you don't like any of it, then, well, fuck it.
I like that a lot.

I do think this book could be taken too literally, and lead to someone saying Fuck It to being pro-active, leading them to just wait for the bad stuff to go away and the good stuff to come. Which I don't believe would end well.
For me that's not what the book was saying though- the Fuck It way is simply about not worrying so much about stuff.  

Have a look at the website if you feel like it. Particularly the video of Parkin's kids talking about the Fuck It way of life. Pretty funny watching children being allowed to swear so much.

5/5 ¶¶