The Midnight Library

The Midnight Library tells the story of Nora, a depressed woman in her 30s, who, on the day she decides to die, finds herself in a library full of lives she could have lived, where she discovers there’s a lot more to life, even her current one, than she had ever imagined.

In an episode of The Sandman, Robert “Hob” Gadling strikes a deal with Death: In exchange for sharing his experience once a century, he won’t die. Some centuries Hob lives like a pauper, in others he lives like a king. No matter whether he’s rich or just lost his family, however, Hob asks for 100 more years at each meeting. 600 years later, his conclusion is clear: “I could do this forever.”

Whereas Hob is driven by curiosity and a lust for life, Nora finds something wrong with every life she tries. In the married pub-owner life with her ex Dan, he cheats on her and drinks too much. Had she moved to Australia, her best friend would have died. If swimmer-Nora had become an Olympic gold medalist, she’d still be depressed, and if her cat hadn’t died early last night, it would have died three hours later.

With each disappointment, Nora returns to the library. So, for different reasons, she and Hob learn the same lesson: You could live a million lives, and yet, you would still not be satisfied — because striving for progress is just human nature.

While this drives civilization, as individuals, we are also happiest when we feel we’re evolving, and to evolve, we need to make a change. That’s why, even if we lived a thousand years, there’d always be things we still feel we need to do.

Don’t strive for a perpetual state of perfection. It doesn’t exist. Learn to be okay with never being completely satisfied, and make the most of this trait rather than regret it.

After she has tried being a glaciologist, being a rockstar, and owning a vineyard, Nora finally finds a life that seems to fit like a glove. She is married to her hot neighbor Ash, who’s a surgeon. They have a daughter and a dog. The couple lives in Cambridge, and Nora is a philosophy professor. In other words, everything is perfect. For weeks, Nora stays in this life, thinking this might be the one. But eventually, she realizes she must leave it behind. For one, Nora hasn’t earned this life. She wants it, but unless she can achieve it through her own actions, she’ll never fully enjoy it. For another, the perfection of Nora’s life came at the expense of who she left behind. A boy she originally gave piano lessons to, for…