A short and sweet review of On Getting Out of Bed: The Burden and Gift of Living, by Alan Noble. Honest hope for those living with depression.
Every religion, self-help technique and business promises a way for you to get a pleasant life if you merit such. But tragedy is inevitable, author Alan Noble points out. “Life is far more difficult” than we assume it will be. He continues this theme throughout this short book on living with depression. Depression is a difficult companion. Friends and family will weary of the long battle; you yourself will weary of your own suffering. So how do you live with such a thorn in the flesh? As the author himself suffers from depression, he is wary of offering pat answers and instead tries to offer honesty and a measure of hope.
A book on living with depression cannot avoid the topic of suicide. Why choose getting out of bed each day? The author gives us an interesting reason for refusing suicide when life seems meaningless: we are our brothers’ keepers. In other words, our lives and our choices about life versus death have more of an impact on others than we may recognize.
Tremendous suffering is a normal part of life. So are joy and beauty, Noble adds, but he wants readers to be unsurprised by tragedy. People often think tragedy only happens to certain unlucky members of society or to those who make bad life choices. But tragedy will touch all of us in this fallen world.
Why Get Out of Bed?
Noble sums up his book in the introduction with the following powerful words: “Your life is a good gift from a loving God. Even when subjectively it doesn’t feel good or like a gift, and even when you doubt that God is loving, please get out of bed anyway.”
Favorite Quote from On Getting Out of Bed:
“There’s a kind of unspoken conspiracy to ignore how difficult life is, or to reframe it as something romantic: a heroic challenge we overcome on our way to the good life.”
On Getting Out of Bed, chapter 1