The Answer Is No

by Fredrik Backman

Lucas is happy. This is a very provoking thing to the world. Because people aren’t supposed to be happy, they’re only supposed to want to be happy, because how otherwise are you supposed to be able to sell things to them? More than anything people are supposed to pretend to be happy on the internet so that other people are reminded of how unhappy they themselves are by comparison.

Because Lucas is making the mistake of thinking that the board wants to solve the problem. But people actually almost never want to do that.

truth about problems is that the problem itself is never actually the problem. It’s always the people involved who are the problem.

“I’m . . . no expert. But I think most people who want to be happy try to add things to their lives. But really what maybe they should be doing is taking something away.”