Lim Swee Heong on Andy Weir's The Martian and Solving Problems One Step at a Time

Motivation does not always arrive through biographies or self-help books. Sometimes it comes from a novel that is simply fun to read and happens to model a useful way of thinking. In this piece, I, Lim Swee Heong, who also writes online as bullbearnme Swee, look at Andy Weir's The Martian as a story about calm, methodical problem-solving, and at how a reader can take something practical from it without pretending a thriller is a manual for life.

What kind of book The Martian is

The Martian is a science fiction novel and Andy Weir's debut. It has an unusual publishing history that is worth knowing because it says something about persistence in its own right. After struggling to interest literary agents in earlier work, Weir posted the story chapter by chapter for free on his own website starting around 2011. Readers asked for an e-book, so he put a Kindle edition on sale at the lowest price Amazon allowed. It climbed the science fiction charts, an audiobook deal followed, and Crown published the print edition in February 2014. A film adaptation directed by Ridley Scott was released in 2015.

The premise is set out on the book's own jacket and in nearly every review, so it is not a spoiler. Mark Watney is a botanist and mechanical engineer on a crewed NASA mission to Mars. A severe dust storm forces the crew to abort and leave the surface in a hurry. Watney is injured, separated from the others and believed dead, and the crew departs without him. He wakes up alone on Mars with limited supplies, no immediate way to contact anyone and a very long wait before any rescue could possibly arrive.

Much of the story is told through Watney's own mission logs, which gives the book its distinctive voice: practical, technical and very funny in a dry, gallows-humour way. Later chapters widen out to people on Earth and to his crewmates, told in a more conventional third person.

Fiction first, then lessons

It helps to be clear about what this book is. Watney is an invented character, and his situation is invented. Weir is a software engineer by background and made a serious effort to keep the science plausible, to the point of writing his own software to work out spacecraft trajectories, according to a 2014 interview with WIRED. Reviewers with space backgrounds have generally praised the book's technical grounding. Still, it is a novel, and some elements are simplified or stretched for the story. Weir himself has acknowledged that the opening dust storm is far stronger than the thin Martian atmosphere would realistically allow.

That distinction matters for a motivational reading. The lessons here are not proof that a specific technique works in real emergencies. They are a way of looking at problems that the story makes vivid and memorable. Reading it that way keeps the enjoyment intact while avoiding the trap of treating fiction as evidence.

The core habit: break the impossible into the next solvable problem

The most widely discussed idea in The Martian is a simple one. Watney's overall situation is close to hopeless when viewed as a whole. What keeps the story moving, and keeps him going, is that he rarely tries to solve the whole thing at once. He identifies the most urgent problem, works out what he has, does the arithmetic, tests something, and then moves to the next problem. Food, water, air, power, shelter, communication and travel each become separate puzzles.

This is a genuinely useful mental habit, and it is not limited to astronauts. Large, vague worries tend to freeze people. A move, a career change, an exam, a health goal or a messy household project can all feel overwhelming when held in the mind as a single block. Asking a narrower question, such as what is the most important thing to sort out this week, and what do I actually have to work with, tends to turn anxiety into action.

The book also shows the less glamorous side of this approach. Watney checks his numbers, writes things down and plans for things going wrong. Several of his plans fail, sometimes dramatically, and the response is not despair but a revised plan. A reader does not need to be technical to take the point: progress usually looks like a series of small tests and corrections rather than one clever breakthrough.

Humour as a working tool

Watney's voice is the reason many readers love this book. He jokes constantly, complains about the entertainment his crewmates left behind, and narrates near-disasters with a deadpan tone. It would be easy to treat the humour as decoration, but within the story it works as part of his coping.

There is a sensible, modest lesson here. Humour can make a hard situation more bearable and can keep a person thinking clearly instead of spiralling. It is not the same as denial. Watney's jokes sit alongside careful attention to real risks; he does not laugh the danger away. In everyday life, a light tone can help a team get through a stressful week or help someone keep perspective during a frustrating stretch, as long as it does not become a way to avoid the actual work or dismiss other people's worries.

It is also fair to note that the book's humour is not to everyone's taste, and the original self-published text included more profanity than later editions. Readers who prefer a gentler tone can look for the classroom edition, which was released for schools with the language toned down.

The people on the other side

Mild spoiler note: this section discusses the general shape of the story beyond the opening without describing specific events.

Although the book is often summarised as one man surviving alone, a large part of it is about other people. Engineers, managers, scientists and the crew all play roles, and the story spends real time on how they argue, weigh risks, make difficult trade-offs and cooperate across organisations. Not every decision is easy, and not every character agrees.

This is one of the more grounded aspects of the novel. Even the most self-reliant effort usually depends on many people doing careful, unglamorous work. For a reader, it is a useful counterweight to the lone-hero myth that runs through a lot of motivational writing. Personal resourcefulness matters, and so does asking for help, sharing information honestly and being willing to change course when someone else has a better idea.

Practical ways to read it reflectively

The Martian is a fast read, and many people finish it in a few sittings. A few simple habits can help draw more out of it without slowing it down too much.

Notice each moment when Watney redefines a problem. Often the turning point is not a new piece of equipment but a new way of asking the question. Keeping a quick note of these reframings is a good way to build the same habit.

Pay attention to how he handles failure. When something goes wrong, look at the order of his responses: assess damage, secure what is essential, then plan again. That sequence translates surprisingly well to ordinary setbacks.

If the science sparks curiosity, follow it up with reliable sources. NASA's public material on Mars exploration is a natural next step, and it helps separate what is realistic from what is dramatic licence. Fiction that leads to learning is one of the best kinds.

After finishing, consider watching the film adaptation as a comparison. Seeing which parts a film keeps and which it compresses is an interesting exercise in itself, and it often highlights how much of the book's appeal comes from its narration.

Why a fun novel can be quietly motivating

There is sometimes an assumption that motivational reading has to be serious. The Martian is a good counterexample. It is entertaining from start to finish, and it leaves many readers with a clearer picture of what steady, practical persistence looks like. It suggests that confidence often comes after action rather than before it, and that a calm, methodical approach can carry a person through situations that seem impossible at first glance.

Read with an awareness that it is fiction, The Martian offers a light but lasting reminder: when everything feels like too much, solve the next problem, check your work, keep a sense of humour and let other people help. That is advice worth carrying back to Earth.

If you enjoy reading about books, travel, cycling and gaming, you can find more of my writing on Medium at https://medium.com/@bullbearnmeswee

A statement from Lim Swee Heong

I'm Lim Swee Heong, a cloud database architect in Singapore who enjoys cycling, sightseeing, travel, reading and gaming on Nintendo Switch and PS5. I also go by bullbearnme Swee online.