Please Unsubscribe, Thanks!: How to Take Back Our Time, Attention, and Purpose in a Relentless World

Atomic Habits meets The Subtle Art of Not Giving a F*ck in this life-changing guide to freeing yourself from the behaviors, values, and relationships that keep you from being happy.

When the pandemic brought the world to a standstill, author Julio Vincent Gambuto realized a powerful truth: in the pre-pandemic world, Americans were exhausted, lonely, unhappy, wildly overworked and overbooked, drowning in sea of constantly being on the go and needing to buy more, more, more. But when that pressure disappeared, people rediscovered what was important to them. They quit jobs that made them unhappy and moved their families to suburbs. Simple things like outdoor walks replaced gym memberships; home cooking and backyard gardens replaced takeout; less commuting meant more time for family and creative projects; and for perhaps the first time in a long time, people were being honest. Honest about what they wanted, what they believed in. Honest about the problems they were facing within their families, friend groups, workplaces, towns, and society overall.

That honesty, he noticed, had the potential to make the ground shift. It created a capacity for change. But he also knew that it likely wouldn’t last, because the most powerful forces running our world would not allow it to. They wanted control over our clicks, our conversations, our dollars, our work, our votes—our lives. The only way that we could beat those systems, would be to resist the calls to keep moving, and to “go back to normal.” In order to change, we had to unsubscribe.

Now, in Please Unsubscribe, Thanks!, Gambuto gives us a radical blueprint for the ways we can take a deep breath, renew and commit to a life that we really want, individually and collectively, from unsubscribing to emails and automated subscriptions to reevaluating the presence of people and ideas and habits that no longer serve us or make us happy. Infused with the practical advice in James Clear’s Atomic Habits and the humor of Sarah Knight’s The Life-Changing Magic of Not Giving a F**k, this groundbreaking guide helps us focus on where we find joy in our lives and encourages us to toss out what doesn’t bring us joy in this modern world.

About the Author

Julio Vincent Gambuto is the author of the viral essay series “Prepare for the Ultimate Gaslighting,” which sparked a world-wide conversation reaching more than 21 million readers in twenty-nine countries. A moviemaker by trade and training, Julio has written, directed, and produced film and television content for The New Yorker, Nickelodeon, PBS, E! Entertainment, Samuel Goldwyn Films, Beta Films, Stone & Company, and Kerner Entertainment. He is a graduate of Harvard University and earned his MFA from the USC School of Cinematic Arts, where he was an Annenberg Fellow. Prior, Julio worked as a marketing communications writer and consultant, and cofounded TAYPE—an after-school arts program for LGBTQ+ teens. He lives in New York City. Please Unsubscribe, Thanks! is his debut book. Learn more at JulioVincent.com.