When Breath Becomes Air by Dr Paul Kalanithi

I am using the style that the brilliant Ali Abdaal uses here.

🚀 The Book in 3 Sentences:

1) Life and the life that you imagined for yourself and your loved ones can change in an instant.
2) At the end of our lives we won't remember the house we lived in, the car we drove or the money we made - we will remember those that we loved and those that loved us.
3) There is always beauty to be found in unimaginable tragedy and pain.

🎨 Impressions and How the book changed me: I read a lot - but this book profoundly changed me.  I read it just before I found out that I was about to become a dad. It was a time in our life that was extremely challenging. It made me  stop rushing, sit still and high my loved ones a little tighter.    

The book asks:
1) What makes life worth living in the face of death?
2) What does it mean to have children - to see life begin while another one fades away?

✍️ My Top 5 Quotes:

“Human knowledge is never contained in one person. It grows from the relationships we create between each other and the world, and still, it is never complete.”― Paul Kalanithi, When Breath Becomes Air

“I began to realize that coming in such close contact with my own mortality had changed both nothing and everything. Before my cancer was diagnosed, I knew that someday I would die, but I didn’t know when. After the diagnosis, I knew that someday I would die, but I didn’t know when. But now I knew it acutely. The problem wasn’t really a scientific one. The fact of death is unsettling. Yet there is no other way to live.” ― Paul Kalanithi, When Breath Becomes Air

That message is simple: When you come to one of the many moments in life when you must give an account of yourself, provide a ledger of what you have been, and done, and meant to the world, do not, I pray, discount that you filled a dying man’s days with a sated joy, a joy unknown to me in all my prior years, a joy that does not hunger for more and more, but rests, satisfied. In this time, right now, that is an enormous thing.” ― Paul Kalanithi, When Breath Becomes Air

There is a moment, a cusp when the sum of gathered experience is worn down by the details of living. We are never so wise as when we live in this moment.” ― Paul Kalanithi, When Breath Becomes Air

“even if I’m dying until I actually die, I am still living.” ― Paul Kalanithi, When Breath Becomes Air

🧭 How I Discovered It:

One of my great, great friends Simon gifted me the book and inscribed:

"Dear Matty,
Happy Birthday, brother. Though separated by the Pacific,
the imprint of your character, generous spirit and devotion abide.

Love you,
From Simon

Simon is indeed one of my closest and beloved friends.  

👤 Who Should Read It?

I think that everyone should read this book - regularly. I think that we should not have to wait for a crisis to appreciate what matters most in life.  

If you'd like to read more of my Book Summaries, you might find these interesting.

You can get a copy here: https://bit.ly/3IIIxt8