Issue No. 63 | Nov 10, 2023

Hi friends,

I finished the book Night by Nobel Laureate Elie Wiesel this week. The memoir was a poignant account of his experience during the Nazi occupation in the 1940s.

Like most Holocaust survivors, Wiesel faced extreme hunger, sickness, and cruelty. He saw his dad beaten and starved to death.

The most profound impression I had from the book was the first night when Wiesel arrived at the Auschwitz concentration camp. He was shocked by how many men, women, and children were sent to the crematorium and burned alive.

He refused to accept what was happening. He wrote:

In the same chapter, Wiesel wrote the most striking paragraph:

I wondered why I chose to read another Holocaust book. Stories like this aren’t pleasurable reads, but I think they help me make sense of the difficulties in my life—not to negate them, but to put them in perspective.

When I was younger, I had a naive understanding that if I could remove pain and discomfort, I would be happy. But as I age, I realize this thinking is flawed in two ways.

First, it’s impossible to eliminate all pains. Regardless of our current circumstances, life can go wrong when we least expect it and in ways we can't imagine. No amount of contingency planning or material abundance can prevent that.

Second, the absence of unhappiness is not the same as the presence of happiness. It took me years to understand this idea, but seeing difficult moments through this lens has been helpful. A lack of problems is not the same as happiness; a painless existence doesn't guarantee joy.

Happiness and sadness aren’t mutually exclusive. Instead, the two can—and often, must—coexist. This means we can be happy amid difficulties.

From this perspective, happiness is a choice we must make repeatedly: Will I choose to be happy with what I have now even though the circumstance is not what I wanted?

This question is the hardest to answer when we face tremendous difficulties. When I read Wiesel's traumatic narrative, I thought, "Give this guy a break already!" How is it possible for someone like him to be happy ever again?

As these thoughts swirled, I came across another passage from the Book of Joy. South African archbishop Desmond Tutu said:

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Have a great weekend!

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Until next Friday,

Jimmy

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p.s. photo of the week​
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p.p.s. If someone forwarded this letter to you and you enjoyed my writing, you can subscribe here.

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