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Matt Haig - Reasons to stay alive  

And compassion.

That's another thing I like about Buddhism.

The idea that kindness makes us happier than selfishness. That kindness is a shredding of the self [ego] ….To be selfless [egoless] , while being mindful, seems to be a good solution, when the self [ego] intensifies and causes us to suffer.

Being good feels good because it makes us remember that we are not the only person that matters in this world.

We all matter because we are all alive. And so kindness is an active way in which we can see and feel the bigger picture. We are ultimately all the same thing. We are life.

We are consciousness. And so by feeling part of humanity, rather than an isolated unit, we feel better. We might physically perish, like a cell in a body might perish, but the body of life continues. And so, in the sense that life is a shared experience, we continue.

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..... travel isn't always a solution. Or even an option. But it certainly helps me, when I get the chance to go away. I think, more than anything, it helps give a sense of perspective. We might be stuck in our minds, but we aren't physically stuck. And unsticking ourselves from our physical location can help dislodge our unhappy mental state. Movement is the antidote to fixedness, after all. And it helps. Sometimes. Just sometimes.

'Travel makes one modest,' said Gustave Flaubert. 'You see what a tiny place you occupy in the world.' Such perspective can be strangely liberating. Especially when you have an illness that may on the one hand lower self-esteem, but on the other intensifies the trivial.