The Comfort Book

Content Warning: This section of the guide contains references to suicidal ideation, sexual abuse, the Holocaust/antisemitism, and slavery.

The first chapter, titled “Baby,” instructs the reader to imagine themself as a baby. Haig suggests that when people look at a baby, they think that the baby lacks nothing; a baby’s value “does not depend on external things like wealth or appearance or politics or popularity” but rather encompasses the “infinite value of human life” (5). Although people remain valuable as they grow, they forget their inherent value, which Haig seeks to remind them of.

In “You are the goal,” Haig emphasizes that self-love does not require continual self-improvement. Self-compassion should override the “pressure” in the world. In the same chapter, Haig writes, “Nothing is stronger than a small hope that doesn’t give up” (7).

In “A thing my dad said once when we were lost in a forest,” Haig recounts a time when he was 12 or 13. He and his father got lost in a forest in France while out for a run. Upon realizing they were lost, they walked fruitlessly in circles. Haig’s father asked two poachers for directions, and they sent them the wrong way.