The Comfort Book - Matt Haig Page 0,15

our incompleteness. To be free from the shackles of memory, and ambition, to be free from comparison to other people and other hypothetical selves, and to meet the moment without any other agenda, to exist as freely as time itself.

I hope this email finds you well

I hope this email finds you calm.

I hope this email finds you unflustered about your inbox.

I hope this email finds you in a state of acceptance that this email isn’t exactly important in the cosmic scheme of things.

I hope this email finds your work happily unfinished.

I hope this email finds you beneath a beautiful sky with the wind tenderly caressing your hair like an invisible mother.

I hope this email finds you lying on a beach, or maybe beside a lake.

I hope this email finds you with the sunlight on your face.

I hope this email finds you eating some blissfully sweet grapes.

I hope this email finds you well but, you know what, it is okay if it doesn’t because we all have bad days.

I hope this email finds you reading a really good poem or something else that requires no direct response from you.

I hope this email finds you far away from this email.

A note on the future

Our anxieties and insecurities, particularly it seems in the West, are shaped by our demand that the future be free from worry. But of course we can’t ever have such assurance. The future sits there with pen in hand, refusing to sign that particular contract.

Alan Watts, a British philosopher heavily influenced by Eastern philosophy and spirituality, reminded us that the future is inherently unknown. “If . . . we cannot live happily without an assured future, we are certainly not adapted to living in a finite world where, despite the best plans, accidents will happen, and where death comes at the end.” So, in other words, if we demand the future be free from suffering in order to be happy, we can’t be happy. It is like demanding the sea be entirely still before we sail on it.

Beware because

Your value never needs to be justified. You aren’t valuable because you work hard or earn a lot or can jump high or have a six-pack or you built a business or you are kind or look good in selfies or present a TV show or can sit at the piano and play “Für Elise” off by heart. Your value has no because. You are the right quantity. You are a full cup. You are worth yourself, and that is always enough.

Ten things that won’t make you happier

Wanting to be someone you aren’t.

Wishing you could undo a past that can’t be undone.

Taking out your hurt on people who didn’t cause your hurt.

Trying to distract yourself from pain by doing something that creates more pain.

Being unable to forgive yourself.

Waiting for people to understand you when they don’t even understand themselves.

Imagining happiness is the place you reach when you get everything done.

Trying to control things in a universe characterized by unpredictability.

Avoiding painful memories by resisting a contented present.

The belief that you have to be happy.

Check your armor

Check your emotional armor is actually protecting you, and not so heavy you can’t move.

Your problem is how you are going to spend this one and precious life you have been issued. Whether you’re going to spend it trying to look good and creating the illusion that you have power over circumstances, or whether you are going to taste it, enjoy it and find out the truth about who you are.

Anne Lamott, Berkeley commencement address

A human, being

Your worth is you. Your worth is your presence. Your worth is right there. Your worth isn’t something you earn. Your worth isn’t something you buy. Your worth isn’t something you gain through status or popularity or stomach crunches or having a really chic kitchen. Your worth is your existence. You were born with worth, as all babies are, and that worth doesn’t disappear simply because you have grown a little older. You are a human, being.

You are waterproof

It is easier to learn to be soaked and happy than to learn how to stop the rain.

PART THREE

Each of us is born with a box of matches inside us.

Laura Esquivel, Like Water for Chocolate

Candle

When things go dark, we can’t see what we have. That doesn’t mean we don’t have those things. Those things remain, right there in front of us. All we need is to light a candle, or ignite