Lessons in Chemistry

by Bonnie Garmus

she didn’t like the notion that systems had to be outsmarted. Why couldn’t they just be smart in the first place?

“One thing I’ve learned, Calvin: people will always yearn for a simple solution to their complicated problems. It’s a lot easier to have faith in something you can’t see, can’t touch, can’t explain, and can’t change, rather than to have faith in something you actually can.” She sighed. “One’s self, I mean.”

“Who’s your friend?” he called out to her, shaking off the odd feeling. “It’s six thirty,” she called back after glancing at her wrist.

“Are you any good?” “No.” “Then why are you doing it?” “I’m not sure.” He shook his head. “Boy, do I get that.”

a pen pal. He’d never met the man but they’d managed to establish a strong friendship. Maybe because, like confession, they both found it easier to talk to someone they couldn’t see.

before he realized that making her happy made him happy. Which, he thought, as he grabbed his tennis shoes, had to be the very definition of love. To actually want to change for someone else.

No surprise. Idiots make it into every company. They tend to interview well.

People were always insisting they knew what it meant, even if the writer hadn’t meant that at all, and even if what they thought it meant had no actual meaning.

“Do you hate advice givers? I do. They have a way of making one feel inadequate. And the advice is usually lousy.”

She wanted to think there was some iron-clad bond that connected her to them for life, but that’s not how it worked. Families required constant maintenance.

but when it comes to religion, I tend to think it humbles us—teaches us our place in the world.” “Really?” she said, surprised. “I think it lets us off the hook. I think it teaches us that nothing is really our fault; that something or someone else is pulling the strings; that ultimately, we’re not to blame for the way things are; that to improve things, we should pray. But the truth is, we are very much responsible for the badness in the world. And we have the power to fix it.”

And yet he still found plenty to complain about. What was wrong with him? Just as people have a bad habit of dismissing others’ problems and tragedies, so too did they have a bad habit of not appreciating what they have.

Courage is the root of change—and change is what we’re chemically designed to do. So when you wake up tomorrow, make this pledge. No more holding yourself back.