A friend recently recommended a book to me—she claimed it was incredibly eye-opening. Therefore, I had to go out and get it! The text in question is Maybe You Should Talk to Someone by Lori Gottlieb. Let me tell you, it is incredible. Lori Gottlieb is a therapist. After her long-time boyfriend breaks up with her, she decides to go to therapy. The book takes us through her therapy process as well as her experiences with her clients. It’s an incredible book with plenty of life lessons to take away. To encourage you to read it, I will explain and include some of my favorite parts.
One significant part of the book references another work. The essay is titled Welcome to Holland by Emily Perl Kingsley. In the paper, Kingsley compares having a child with autism to a vacation in Italy. Imagine you are planning a vacation to Italy. You get excited and plan all the things you will do, all the places you’ll go. Maybe you’ll visit the Colosseum or go to Venice! You’re so excited. However, when your plane lands, you find yourself in Holland instead of Italy. Kingsley explains that mourning that you didn’t go to Italy can impede your ability to see all the beautiful things about Holland. The writer is very thankful for her child despite things not going to plan. I find this excerpt incredibly moving. Life more than likely will not go according to our plans. Thus, it is essential to find joy despite the things that go wrong. If you get so caught up in the past, you will waste the present!
Another takeaway is that sometimes we get complacent in life. We think the future is promised. We make goals and have dreams, but we forget that our time on this earth is finite. Lori Gottlieb describes this in the book. She states, “People tend to dream without doing, death remaining theoretical.” It is so easy to feel like we have forever to accomplish the things we want. However, there is one thing that is always certain in life. Sadly, it is death. This realization, however scary, is essential. We should cherish every day we have in our lives. We should try our best to do all the things we want. Looking back at my time on this earth, I want to remember all the beautiful things I got to do, not everything I wish I did.
I also loved the ending of the book. It describes how ending therapy is much like pausing a conversation. You may continue that therapy or that conversation in the future, or you might not. However, the dialogue and healing never really end. You will never forget your experiences. They will affect your future actions and thoughts. The pause in conversation is very much how our relationships in life work. Although they may fade away, they never really end. Every person we have interacted with has affected us in some way. They still live on inside us. Their memory and touch are visible in the songs we listen to or the movies we quote. We are a mosaic of all the people who have touched us, slowly adding color with each memory and experience. I find this to be a beautiful thought.
All in all, Maybe You Should Talk to Someone is a new favorite of mine. If you want to feel reflective about your life and experiences, I highly recommend it. It is also a great intro to the world of therapy! You can find the book for purchase here.
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