Disappointment Panda would be the hero that none of us would want but all of us would need. He’d be the proverbial vegetables to our mental diet of junk food. He’d make our lives better despite making us feel worse.

“Life is essentially an endless series of problems, Mark,” the Disappointment Panda told me. He sipped his drink and adjusted the little pink umbrella. “The solution to one problem is merely the creation of the next one… Don’t hope for a life without problems,” the panda said. “There’s no such thing.

“Disappointment Panda would be the hero that none of us would want but all of us would need. He'd be the proverbial vegetables to our mental diet of junk food.” ― Mark Manson, The Subtle Art of Not Giving a F*ck: A Counterintuitive Approach to Living a Good Life

Disappointment Panda is a superhero who’s superpower is to tell people the harsh truth about themselves – so that they can come to terms with it and take action. While that might at first sound more like a villain than a hero, Mark might be onto something.

If you meet this panda, he will tell you how ugly you are, that you are such a failure. Of course that wouldn’t pleasant to hear. But sometimes, what we need is for someone to tell us the...