Reasons to Stay Alive

by Matt Haig

When I sink deep, now, and I still do from time to time, I try and understand that there is another, bigger and stronger part of me that is not sinking. It stands unwavering. It is, I suppose, the part that would have been once called my soul.

If we are tired or hungry or hungover, we are likely to be in a bad mood. That bad mood is therefore not really us. To believe in the things we feel at that point is wrong, because those feelings would disappear with food or sleep.

Just as the ground below New York and, say, Lagos, becomes identical if you go down far enough beneath the earth’s surface, so every human inhabitant on this freak wonder of a planet shares the same core.

I am you and you are me. We are alone, but not alone. We are trapped by time, but also infinite. Made of flesh, but also stars.

Wherever you are, at any moment, try and find something beautiful. A face, a line out of a poem, the clouds out of a window, some graffiti, a wind farm. Beauty cleans the mind.

Hate is a pointless emotion to have inside you. It is like eating a scorpion to punish it for stinging you.

Understand that thoughts are thoughts. If they are unreasonable, reason with them, even if you have no reason left. You are the observer of your mind, not its victim.

Do not watch TV aimlessly. Do not go on social media aimlessly. Always be aware of what you are doing, and why you are doing it. Don’t value TV less. Value it more. Then you will watch it less. Unchecked distractions will lead you to distraction.

Beware of the gap. The gap between where you are and where you want to be. Simply thinking of the gap widens it. And you end up falling through.

Three in the morning is never the time to try and sort out your life.

Read Emily Dickinson. Read Graham Greene. Read Italo Calvino. Read Maya Angelou. Read anything you want. Just read. Books are possibilities. They are escape routes. They give you options when you have none. Each one can be a home for an uprooted mind.

Remember that the key thing about life on earth is change. Cars rust. Paper yellows. Technology dates. Caterpillars become butterflies. Nights morph into days. Depression lifts.

Just when you feel you have no time to relax, know that this is the moment you most need to make time to relax.

Willie Nelson once said that sometimes you have to either write a song or you kick your foot through a window. The third option, I suppose, is that you write a book.