You’re in purgatory.
It’s a nice one.
You get to choose from endless alternate realities. You can become an oceanographer, an Olympic athlete, a happily married mother of two, a bank robber, anything…
This is the plot of The Midnight Library by Matt Haig. It’s fun. Adventurous. It expands your mind with possibilities. It reminds us there are other possibilities for you. In this life. All you have to do is start addressing your regrets.
Do you have any regrets? Personally, I regret not being more artistic as a child. I remember friends who were artists, musicians, aspiring actors – the sorts of kids who rode skateboards and smoked cigarettes and quoted movies I wasn’t allowed to watch. I could blame people and circumstances for my comparatively rigid youth (in a nutshell - combed hair, bad skin, and the starched uniform of Catholic school).
Or I could remember the release of The Chamber of Secrets. Mom drove me to Bookland. It was getting dark as we pulled into the parking lot. Stacks of red covers were glowing in the windows. That smell of freshly-printed books.
Today, I write. Who knows – I may even buy a skateboard… I travel, interviewing artistic types for a new online project. I want to learn an instrument. Refresh myself on basic math.
There are hidden futures in each of these new endeavors. Adventures. Possibilities.
So try on something new. As Matt Haig reminds us, regrets aren’t here to torture you. They’re here to remind you of the endless possibilities in store.
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