How Should a Person Be?: A Novel from Life

by Sheila Heti

I was starting to feel like I had made a mistake; it was incredibly stupid to leave the salon. I loved it there! And how would I make money now? It was so clear to me: the happiness I felt at the salon had been real, and I was giving it up out of some ill-considered vanity; the need to protect my image in Uri’s eyes. As the moments passed, my decision became more irrevocable, and my life at the salon slipped farther away; I would soon have no place there at all. My panic increased as I tried to think of ways I could take my resignation back, meanwhile trying to remind myself that the point of life was not to avoid suffering—that every choice involved suffering—and that in choosing to leave the salon, I was choosing one kind of suffering, while choosing to stay would involve another, whereas going back and forth as I was doing now was the worst suffering of all, as it was an attempt to avoid life, which would leave me finally with nothing!