Matt Haig has a lot of hopes for you in The Comfort Book.

Here they are, some of them:

“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.”

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I sometimes find myself wishing for the comfort of a warm, magical burrito…

but The Comfort Book reminds me to embrace the whole journey….

”Let everything happen to you: beauty and terror.

Just keep going.

No feeling is final.”

Rainer Maria Rilke, The Book of Hours

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The Comfort Book also offers “A little plan” that I quite like:

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.

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