Even Though There’s 4046 miles Between Us, Alain De Botton Hugs Me Every Single Time I Go Off The Deep End

There is light at the end of this tunnel.

Animation by Nick Hilditch for School of Life

I wrote this post for Alain’s birthday — 20th of December— but I was too exhausted by the time I finished.

Belated Happy Birthday, Alain De Botton.

For those who don’t know this gem of a man, Alain De Botton is a modern-day philosopher and a best-selling author of numerous life-saving works such as Status Anxiety, How Proust Can Change Your Life, Essays in Love and many others.

He runs a global institution called the School of Life where he teaches uncommon wisdom, like how to understand yourself and the World around you. Why are we jerks to our parents, or why we can’t stop getting more cats.

Alain is a life-saver and an inspirational icon in many ways, but perhaps his greatest service to humanity is to bring philosophy into a common citizen’s life as a source of comfort and solace.

Here’s a snapshot of what I’ve learnt from Alain in the past decade.

On Childhood

“One of the problems of our childhood is that they are usually surrounded by a misleading implication — that they…