The Comfort Book

by Matt Haig

When times are hard, we need a deep kind of comfort. Something elemental. A solid support. A rock to hold on to. The kind we already have inside us. But which we sometimes need a bit of help to see.

Perhaps home is not a place but simply an irrevocable condition. James Baldwin, Giovanni’s Room

We stay precisely as alive and precisely as human as we were the day we were born. The only thing we need is to exist. And to hope.

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.

Nothing is stronger than a small hope that doesn’t give up.

“If we keep going in a straight line we’ll get out of here,” my dad said. And he was right. Eventually we heard the sound of cars and reached a main road. We were eleven miles from the village where we had started off, but at least we had signposts now. We were clear of the trees. And I often think of that strategy, when I am totally lost—literally or metaphorically.

Walking one foot in front of the other, in the same direction, will always get you further than running around in circles. It’s about the determination to keep walking forward.

It’s okay to like what you like. It’s okay to like things for literally no other reason than because you like them and not because they are cool or clever or popular.

It’s okay to let people find you. You don’t have to spread yourself so thin you become invisible. 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.”

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

To feel hope you don’t need to be in a great situation. You just need to understand that things will change. Hope is available to all. You don’t need to deny the reality of the present in order to have hope, you just need to know the future is uncertain, and that life contains light as well as dark.

We are life itself. We aren’t the narrow band of feelings in a single moment. We are the vessel that could contain any feeling. We are the subject in the sentence. We are more than the sum of our achievements. We are more than the feelings we witness. We are the infinity that remains when you subtract them.

The word “dog” is not a dog. The word “water” is not water. A painting of a pipe is not a pipe. TV footage of a war is not a war. On the whole, these theories came across as really complicated and obtuse ways to state the depressingly obvious: we are always grasping after a meaning we can never quite reach.

“There is no greater agony than bearing an untold story inside you,” wrote Angelou. Silence is pain. But it is a pain with an exit route. When we can’t speak, we can write. When we can’t write, we can read. When we can’t read, we can listen. Words are seeds. Language is a way back to life. And it is sometimes the most vital comfort we have.

When things are taken from us, the stuff that remains has more value. It

Don’t envy things you wouldn’t actually want.

Don’t believe anyone has it all figured out.

We all have an impact on each other. We are all connected in so many seen and unseen ways. Which possibly explains why one of the simplest and quickest routes to happiness seems to be to make someone else happy. The reason to be selfless is selfish. Nothing makes ourselves feel better than not thinking of our selves.

Forward momentum is great. But we also need sideways momentum. For instance, I just sat down and ate a pear. I have no idea what the future holds but I am very grateful that I am alive and able to sit on a sofa and eat a pear.

The sky isn’t more beautiful if you have perfect skin. Music doesn’t sound more interesting if you have a six-pack. Dogs aren’t better company if you’re famous. P izza tastes good regardless of your job title. The best of life exists beyond the things we are encouraged to crave.

Be curious. Go outside. Get to bed on time. Hydrate. Breathe from the diaphragm. Eat happy. Get a routine baggy enough to live in. Be kind. Accept that not everyone will like you. Appreciate those who do. Don’t be defined. Allow fuck-ups. Want what you already have. Learn to say no to things that get in the way of life. And to say yes to the things that help you live.

Life is not a ladder to climb a puzzle to solve a key to find a destination to reach a problem to fix

Life is “understood backward; but it must be lived forward” (Søren Kierkegaard)

Imagine forgiving yourself completely. The goals you didn’t reach. The mistakes you made. Instead of locking those flaws inside to define and repeat yourself, imagine letting your past float through your present and away like air through a window, freshening a room. Imagine that.

No is a good word. It keeps you sane. In an age of overload, no is really yes. It is yes to having the space you need to live.