Title You're Not Doing it Right
Author Michael Ian Black
Year Published 2012
Kind of Book Humor/Essay
How strongly I recommend it 10/10
My Impressions This was at times hilarious and at times vulnerable and profound. Essays about an average guy with issues that we all face related to love, marriage, insecurity, and aging. One of my favorite collection of humor essays.
Date Read June 2020
Practical Takeaways
Enter into marriage expecting there to be "a fair amount of suckiness involved"
Favorite Quotes
"The appropriate time to have children is not now."
"I don't want to be the sort of father that inspires art"
[on marriage]
Consider the difference between the following two sentences:
"Hey, you wanna hang out?"
"Hey, you wanna hang out forever?"
"The idea of marriage is so appealing. You pick somebody out, say your 'I do's,' build a family, then sit on the couch and wait for each other to die."
"The thing nobody ever tells you about marriage is that sometimes it makes you lonelier than being alone ever could."
"Having a rent-controlled apartment in New York is like living in medieval Europe and having spices."
"…if you are a naturally happy person you will never do anything with your life."
"Doctors should always be older than me…"
"After years of fighting to distinguish myself, the idea that I don't have to be unique feels as cozy to me as a blanket just out of the dryer. I don't need to be different, don't need to be better. The aspirational lifestyle turned out to be a lifestyle in which I am just another middle-aged dude, and I have to say, there are times when being just another middle-aged dude is fine by me."
Big Ideas
Men never really feel like they know what they're doing (even after they're all grown up and have kids)
There's never a good time to have kids
Hanging out with anyone FOREVER is sounds bad
if you are a naturally happy person you will never do anything with your life
You don't have to be unique and different to feel good about yourself