Before we delve into this very unorthodox life approach, I want to issue a full disclaimer. For me to truly write within the practice of the Zero F*cks Mindset I will be, for the remainder of this article, not censoring my profanity. Granted I assure you that I will “tone it down” as a show of good faith to you, the reader, as I’m convinced my normal vernacular would not only be unacceptable in polite society, but it would likely have me permanently blacklisted from ever writing for Odyssey ever again. So with that being said...here we go!

Behold! Gaze upon my garden of fucks and you will see that it is baron. If we could all only be so fortunate. To have no obligations, and the freedom to tell the world to go fuck itself at the drop of a dime, but life is a series of responsibilities that require daily attention and to ignore those responsibilities is to bring hardship onto ourselves and those around us. For the sake of living a happy, successful, and fulfilling life you need to care! That is not what the zero fucks mentality is about. Shirking off your job, schoolwork, personal training, or development is not the same as not giving a fuck- that’s just being a lazy and useless piece of shit. So what does this often memed mentality actually mean, and why does it benefit you as a person to apply it?

The zero fucks mentality is something I have within the last couple years been honing in for myself. It is an idea I initially got from my National Guard unit. Most our members in response to a shit sandwich situation would simply throw our arms in the air and proclaim “I haven’t a fuck to give.” Now this was not a statement that we weren’t going to fulfill our duty, it was more of an acceptance of the hardship we were currently facing and relenting that there was no point in complaining any further. Slowly but surely I picked it up and have used it fairly interchangeably throughout my days- though, granted, I’d like to think that I have a pretty high bullshit threshold and it takes quite a bit to make me actually use this mentality. Most of the time I find creative ways around most problems which qualify as minor annoyances in my life. So what else can this mentality be applied to? Well, being the little social media addicted millennial that I am, I followed a few select individuals on Snapchat who always managed to entertain me. The reason I found them entertaining and even inspiring was because their entire life approach was to have fun and be yourself no matter what anyone else had to say about it. It was a contrast to other subcultures I’d seen which claimed that they were non conformist but still subtly wanted your social approval. These individuals joked about what they wanted, dressed how they wanted, and did what they wanted and could genuinely care less what you or I thought about them.

That is what the zero fucks mentality is truly about.

I think currently we live in a much softer generation. We all want to be individual but at the same time we want everyone to accept us for who we are and not what we can do or contribute. This is the wrong approach and likely the end result of not having a world war in sixty years (Kidding, but not really). Its not hard to completely shatter someones inflated ego masking as self confidence. That is why I think the zero fucks mentality is so necessary especially for our generation. You want to be a special little butterfly? You go do you. Just don't expect me or anyone else to A. Give a shit, or B. Accept you because your are unique. You should strive for individualism based on the fact that it's what you want! It's a free society for the time being, so enjoy it to the fullest. If someone has something negative to say which isn’t in the form of constructive criticism, then fuck 'em.