The Comfort Book

by Matt Haig

Do not think that the person who is trying to console you lives effortlessly among the simple, quiet words that sometimes make you feel better. . . . But if it were any different he could never have found the words that he did. Rainer Maria Rilke, Letters to a Young Poet

You don’t have to continually improve yourself to love yourself. Love is not something you deserve only if you reach a goal. The world is one of pressure but don’t let it squeeze your self-compassion. You were born worthy of love and you remain worthy of love. Be kind to yourself.

You don’t have to always be the person reaching out. You can sometimes allow yourself to be reached. As the great writer Anne Lamott puts it: “Lighthouses don’t go running all over an island for boats to save; they just stand there shining.”

if we are distressed about something external, “the pain is not due to the thing itself, but to your estimate of it; and this you have the power to revoke at any moment.”

But it is helpful to remember that our perspective is our world. And our external circumstances don’t need to change in order for our perspective to change. And the forests we find ourselves in are metaphorical, and sometimes we are unable to escape them, but with a change of perspective we can live among the trees.

External events are neutral. They only gain positive or negative value the moment they enter our minds. It is ultimately up to us how we greet these things.

we aren’t at the mercy of the world we can never control, we are at the mercy of a mind we can, potentially, with effort and determination, begin to alter and expand. Our mind might make prisons, but it also gives us keys.

We turn keys all the time. Or rather: time turns keys all the time. Because time means change. And change is the nature of life. The reason to hope.

Neuroplasticity is the way our brains change their structure according to the things we experience. None of us are the same people we were ten years ago. When we feel or experience terrible things, it is useful to remember that nothing lasts. Perspective shifts. We become different versions of ourselves. The hardest question I have ever been asked is: “How do I stay alive for other people if I have no one?” The answer is that you stay alive for other versions of you. For the people you will meet, yes, sure, but also the people you will be.

Self-forgiveness makes the world better. You don’t become a good person by believing you are a bad one.

At our lowest we find the solid ground of our foundation. And we can build ourselves anew.

Don’t absorb criticism from people you wouldn’t go to for advice.

Don’t argue with people who will never understand you.

No physical appearance is worth not eating pasta for.

Take the plate of toast to your favorite seat. Sit. Compose yourself. Be fully aware of how wondrous it is to be sentient. To be aware you are not only alive as a human being, but as a human being about to eat some peanut butter on toast.