John Parkin - Fuck It: Be at Peace with Life, Just as It Is

Stressed, angry or upset? Then try F**k It therapy.

SUNDAY TIMES STYLE

Everyone can relate to F**k It.

THE TIMES

John combines Wayne Hemingways style with Eddie Izzards flights of surrealism.

THE GUARDIAN

The self-help phenomenon that we can all swear by.

EVENING STANDARD

F**k It. I was practising the words. They rolled around my head. We need to say F**k It when were out of sync with the natural world; it helps us go with the flow.

THE OBSERVER

This book makes me smile and, more importantly, clicks my brain into positive mode.

FEARNE COTTON

This brilliant, funny, wise book gives us the kick we need to stop making excuses and do what we love. Parkin is living proof that it can be done.

METRO UK

A new life bible urging us to tip the life balance back in our direction and make time for whats important, rather than all that stuff we feel we should be doing.

SUNDAY MIRROR

Books

F**k It Do What You Love (2016)

F**k It Is the Answer (2014)

F**k It: The Ultimate Spiritual Way (2008, 2014)

F**k It Therapy (2012)

The Way of F**k It (2009)

Audiobooks

F**k It Therapy (2015)

F**k It: The Ultimate Spiritual Way (2014)

The F**k It Show (2010)

Published in the United Kingdom by:

Hay House UK Ltd, Astley House, 33 Notting Hill Gate, London W11 3JQ

Tel: +44 (0)20 3675 2450; Fax: +44 (0)20 3675 2451

www.hayhouse.co.uk

Published in the United States of America by:

Hay House Inc., PO Box 5100, Carlsbad, CA 92018-5100

Tel: (1) 760 431 7695 or (800) 654 5126

Fax: (1) 760 431 6948 or (800) 650 5115

www.hayhouse.com

Published in Australia by:

Hay House Australia Ltd, 18/36 Ralph St, Alexandria NSW 2015

Tel: (61) 2 9669 4299; Fax: (61) 2 9669 4144

www.hayhouse.com.au

Published in India by:

Hay House Publishers India, Muskaan Complex, Plot No.3, B-2, Vasant Kunj, New Delhi 110 070

Tel: (91) 11 4176 1620; Fax: (91) 11 4176 1630

www.hayhouse.co.in

Text John C. Parkin, 2018

The moral rights of the author have been asserted.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced by any mechanical, photographic or electronic process, or in the form of a phonographic recording; nor may it be stored in a retrieval system, transmitted or otherwise be copied for public or private use, other than for fair use as brief quotations embodied in articles and reviews, without prior written permission of the publisher.

The information given in this book should not be treated as a substitute for professional medical advice; always consult a medical practitioner. Any use of information in this book is at the readers discretion and risk. Neither the author nor the publisher can be held responsible for any loss, claim or damage arising out of the use, or misuse, of the suggestions made, the failure to take medical advice or for any material on third-party websites.

A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.

ISBN 978-1-78817-089-5 in print
ISBN 978-1-78817-096-3 in ePub format
ISBN 978-1-78817-097-0 in Kindle formats

Interior images: Christian Wheatley/istockphoto

If youre anything like me, youll have read through the contents of this book to see whats in store for you. Actually, if youre anything like me, you may well have read them in the bookshop, to see if it was worth buying the book.

Because you can tell a lot from a contents list; in fact, you can tell so much from a contents list that sometimes its enough just to read that you get the feeling you wont glean that much more by spending multiple hours (depending on your reading speed) reading the details between the chapter titles that constitute the full book.

So, the first part of my job, really, over the course of this book, is to persuade you that it was worth going beyond the contents. The second part is to get you from Level 1 to Level 3. And Id suggest that reading the contents alone will not get you to Level 3.

I said if youre anything like me, and that of course implies that some of you havent yet read the contents. Youve dived in recklessly, with no thought for the context of what youre reading. Did you even see the title of the book? Or did a good friend who was concerned for your welfare give you the book, and you didnt really look at it; instead, going on trust, you just got stuck into the introduction?

Actually, I suspect there are even some readers wholl ignore the introduction and go straight to the first chapter. I can say anything about them here because theyre never going to read it. They dont read the chapter titles and they dont read the introduction. Fools.

Theyll never get to Level 3, as getting there takes a level of incisive intelligence along with other qualities like patience and self-awareness (which arent necessarily subsets of intelligence, as I know plenty of intelligent but impatient and self-ignorant people).

The point Im making here is about the game structure Ive chosen for the book this Level 1, 2, 3 thing. I like a good game, especially at Christmas: a parlour game, or a board game, or even a video game (if I can manage to get my hands on a controller).

Actually, Ive been known to pay my children for a go on their video games. I say their rather generously of course, because I paid my hard-earned cash for both the hardware and the various overpriced pieces of software, the games. So having to then pay a further sum to actually play the game does seem rather unfair. Hey-ho.

And this level thing is more like a video game. Its rather flippant, of course, to suggest that life is a game. For most people, for most of the time, life doesnt feel like much of a game: it feels difficult and stressful. But part of getting to Level 3 is becoming aware that theres a game-like quality to life. Which makes life more like a game that everyone is forced to play, without knowing its a game; its only revealed to be a game if you get to the highest level.

All analogies fall down, of course, upon scrutiny. Look at the Old Testament, for example.

During a F**k It Weekend I was running earlier this year, I had a realization: theres another level to the F**k It concept one thats beyond what Id previously imagined. This realization sent me on a journey of discovery (this book) that manifested in rather astonishing shifts in perspective. And if you read this book slowly, and ponder it sufficiently, and follow some of the suggestions it contains, and give it enough time, with a good wind, you too will experience similar (or dissimilar, but still astonishing) shifts in perspective.

I cant guarantee that, of course. Theres no money-back guarantee of Level 3 enlightenment here. But Im holding nothing back: Ive seen some light, and Ive worked out how to keep seeing the light. And Im sufficiently good at describing the light as well as explaining how you can see it and keep seeing it so I dont think Id have to shell out that much cash if there were a money-back guarantee (and you could persuade me that although youd done your part, the light still wasnt being seen).

So, back to that realization I had on the F**k It Weekend: it both blew me away with its power and pissed me off because it kind of undermined the whole point of the weekend. I also knew that, to understand this realization fully, and to absorb it into my life and my way of being, Id have to investigate it, unpack it, live it, and see what popped up through that investigation.