The Answer Is No

by Fredrik Backman

He doesn’t want you to call or email and he most certainly doesn’t want you to ever circle back.

The circle back got me laughing 😂

Best to be like dill, Lucas has concluded. Not like basil, the most anxious and ingratiating herb, but also not like cilantro, that conflict-seeking lunatic. Be dill. Nobody cares about dill. Or nobody cared about dill.

Being smart is the worst thing one can be in modern society. All it ever means is more work.

Accurateeeeeeee

“I usually keep my peanuts next to a jar of peanut butter, so they understand what I’m capable of!”

😂😂😂😂

Any middle manager on the planet could of course have told him that this is a terrible decision, because the truth about problems is that the problem itself is never actually the problem. It’s always the people involved who are the problem. But unfortunately there are no middle managers around.

“Who are those people?” he asks. The woman lights up. “Oh! Those are the protesters! Four different groups of them!” “Four?” “Yes! That one group there is protesting against the pile. They’re anti-pile! But that second group is protesting for the pile, because they’re of the opinion that piles have rights too. And that third group is protesting against protesters, because they think this whole protesting thing has gone too far.” “And the fourth group?” Lucas asks. “Oh! They’re protesting against you!”

“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.”

It’s not as hard as one might think to become, the hard part is just to keep being it. It’s hard because it’s so easy to get in your head that if you are to be happy, you have to be happy exactly all of the time. And who in the world has the energy for that? Happiness can be exhausting. Honestly, it’s most often enough to just not be the opposite.

Because the doctors and nurses understand very well that all the modern pills and treatments are surely great, but sometimes what people really need most of all is a prescription for a break.