It's Great to Suck at Something

When was the last time you tried something new? Something that won’t make you more productive, make you more money, or check anything off your to-do list?

Odds are, not recently. As Karen Rinaldi explains in this eye-opening book, we live in a time of aspirational psychoses. We humblebrag about how hard we work, prioritize productivity over play, clamor for likes on social media, and are told not to accept failure as an option. As a result, we are more anxious and depressed than ever.

This book provides the antidote. Inspired by Rinaldi’s viral New York Times article (It’s Great to) Suck at Something, it shows you how to live richer, more fulfilling lives by finding something—anything—to suck at. Rinaldi draws on her personal experience sucking at surfing – a sport she’s dedicated seventeen years of her life to doing without ever coming close to getting good at it, but has managed instead to find meaning and joy in the resilience it takes to continue. Along with philosophy, literature, and the latest science, she explores sucking as a lost art we must reclaim for our health and our sanity. She busts the myth of perfectionism, exposes the lie of nostalgia, and calls BS on workaholism, while helping you discover something you, too, can suck at. Coupling honest, hilarious storytelling with unexpected insights, Rinaldi explains how sucking at something rewires our brain in positive ways and helps us cultivate grit, practice patience and humility, and ultimately, to experience freedom. Freedom to pursue the futile. As Rinaldi contends, the freedom to suck without caring is revelatory.

(It’s Great to) Suck at Something is an invitation to embrace our shortcomings as the very best of who we are and to open ourselves up to adventure, where we may not find what we thought we were looking for, but something way more important.

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