Host Kirti Mutatkar continues KBC (Kirti's Book Club) with Sarah Ahmad to discuss Matt Haig's The Midnight Library - a novel about alternate realities and the choices that shape our lives. About the Book The Midnight Library by Matt Haig follows Nora Seed, a woman in her thirties who finds herself in a magical library between life and death. Each book represents a different life she could have lived based on different choices. As Nora explores these alternate realities, she discovers the weight of regret and societal expectations while searching for a life worth living. The novel explores themes of mental health, purpose, and self-acceptance. KBC Reading Radar Brain Fizz Factor: Sarah - Gentle Bubbles (3/4), Kirti - [not specified] Bookshelf Worthy: Both - Keep on shelf, recommend to others struggling with regrets or life decisions Next Episode: "Why We Die" by Venki Ramakrishnan - continuing Season 1 of KBC
Host Kirti Mutatkar continues KBC (Kirti's Book Club) with Sarah Ahmad to discuss Matt Haig's The Midnight Library - a novel about alternate realities and the choices that shape our lives.
About the Book
The Midnight Library by Matt Haig follows Nora Seed, a woman in her thirties who finds herself in a magical library between life and death. Each book represents a different life she could have lived based on different choices. As Nora explores these alternate realities, she discovers the weight of regret and societal expectations while searching for a life worth living. The novel explores themes of mental health, purpose, and self-acceptance.
KBC Reading Radar
Brain Fizz Factor: Sarah - Gentle Bubbles (3/4), Kirti - [not specified]
Bookshelf Worthy: Both - Keep on shelf, recommend to others struggling with regrets or life decisions
Next Episode: "Why We Die" by Venki Ramakrishnan - continuing Season 1 of KBC
Kirti Mutatkar: [00:00:00] This is exciting. I am here today for KBC, Kirti's Book Club, that's what this is called. And the way, the reason I started this is because I love reading books and I love discussing books.
So it's not just reading books, but when I discuss books, for some reason, they come alive to me more and I like to hear somebody else's perspective. And that gets me excited. And that's the reason I started KBC. And the way it works is I usually reach out to people who love reading and I say. Would you wanna read a book together and come join me for a discussion?
And so today I have Sarah on my podcast. I'm super excited. So Sarah, you recommended The Midnight Library that we read together and discuss it. Why, why this book?
Sarah Ahmad: This book has been really popular, I think the past few years. I think the whole alternate timeline and dimension topic has been pretty [00:01:00] big in the media right now. There's movies been coming out, books, TV shows. It's like a concept that's been really popular. So that's probably why this book has gotten a lot of buzz and I hadn't read it yet, so I thought it'd be a good one to read.
Kirti Mutatkar: So why is there so much buzz around the topics covered in it, right? Do you think it had any impact that this book was during COVID, I think, isn't that when the author wrote it around?
Sarah Ahmad: Yep. During COVID.
Kirti Mutatkar: Yeah.
Sarah Ahmad: Maybe. I think when people are stuck at home, it makes sense that they're probably thinking of everything they could have done in their life that would've led them to a different point when you have nothing to do but ruminate on your life.
I think, you know, before there was alternate universes, we were really into apocalyptic scenes and books and TV shows and movies. I think that these things just kind of cycle, and right now it just so happens that alternate universes are what people are really [00:02:00] exploring. Yeah. So before we get into the book, can you give us a synopsis? So without giving any spoilers for people who might not have read the book.
Sarah Ahmad: I think to just give you one line, it's about a girl named Nora who is in a rough place in her life. She's in her early thirties still figuring it out, and she's ruminating on all the ways that her life could have been different that would've led her to this point.
And she finds herself in a library called the Midnight Library, where she's suddenly faced with every book is a different possible life for her. And the book is kind of exploring, she's trying these on and basically seeing how her life could have ended up differently had she made different choices.
Kirti Mutatkar: So as you were reading the book, did you wonder what that would be like to have a real life or different lives? Did you explore that?
Sarah Ahmad: I think I think about that a lot. And I think the fact that that's so popular is something I, that movie Everything Everywhere All at Once. I was thinking about that a lot. [00:03:00] When I read the premise of it, because it's one of those, it's very similar in premise. Someone trying on all the different realities they could have possessed. And so I think it's something that at some point or another we've all thought about. And the book, Nora has a book of regrets that she comes across in the library, and I think we all have that, whether it's something that you're really aware of or something that when you're lying asleep at night and then all of a sudden you remember that thing that you wish you hadn't done.
So yeah, I think I think about it a lot
Kirti Mutatkar: And it's also the life you could have lived, right? So the way I looked at the book when I was reading it. There are different multiple lives you can have, but as I was reflecting back, the different choices that you make, right? Those could be the, even though with that movie Sliding Doors where the person takes a different turn and has a completely different life than going straight, right?
Sarah Ahmad: I think I read it and I agree with what you're [00:04:00] saying. I think just the only slight difference in how I took it is it wasn't that she was happy with the life she had, it's that I think she realized that she had the potential to make the life that she had happy.
Kirti Mutatkar: That's actually, you're right. You're right. Actually, that's the point in there
Sarah Ahmad: I think she suffered with a lot of guilt too. I think that she sounds like someone who, the reason why Nora has such a big library and so many possible lives and if you read the book, they're very drastically different. Some of us, we all have big decisions in life. For myself, I went to med school and I just graduated and you know, I can say, well, what if I didn't go to med school? What would my career have been? But Nora is very special in that she had several dreams and she was good at all of these different things.
And so she has a lot of kind of emotional real estate to work with in terms of, you know, lives she could have lived. And I think the thing with Nora that was interesting is not just the different types of lives that you kind of see her live. [00:05:00] It's that she has all this pressure. I think that everybody in her life saw her as someone who was going to achieve something big.
And that was kind of the common theme in every life that they showed, is that in every life someone was happy with her and also disappointed with her because she didn't pick the other option. And so I think that, you know, present day Nora before she gets to the library, has so much guilt over all the people she's disappointed because everybody wanted her to go a certain way. And I think that being free of that guilt is probably the biggest gift that I think she gets by the end of the book.
Kirti Mutatkar: That's true. Because prior to that it was she was living for others and then she realizes it's hers to live. That's the thing that changes for her. So as you were looking at it and reading through it, would you want a chance like that?
Sarah Ahmad: I think I would, I think that I am, I've always been the most indecisive person in my own [00:06:00] life. And there's, have you heard of Sylvia Plath and what she wrote about the fig tree?
Kirti Mutatkar: Yeah, the fig tree, I think about that all the time, about how whenever I have a big decision in front of me, I feel like I'm too afraid to make a move, and then I watch all the chances just kind of, you know, fall to the floor, like old figs. And then I wonder if I didn't, if I wasted them. So this kind of book and the premise of it, I think is something that I think about a lot, all the different things I could have done.
And even, and it's not necessarily, I think, a bad thing. I think that it's not that I'm not happy with my current life and choices. I think that sometimes, you know, you just kinda have this yearning for something different all the time. And maybe, you know, that's why this book was written in COVID. Everybody just, you know, your imagination goes wild when you're just sitting at home. But yeah, I think I have sort of this like itch all the time to constantly change everything. And so I think if I had the opportunity to actually [00:07:00] feel and see everything, then maybe I wouldn't have this constant itch to change everything.
I did save a quote that I really liked. And that I think was kind of the biggest takeaway for me.
It was, "Most of what we feel in any life is still available. We don't have to play every game to know what winning feels like. We don't have to hear every piece of music in the world to understand music, love, and laughter and fear are universal currencies." I liked that. I thought that was maybe I've seen other things that have kind of hinted at that, but most of the time, you know everything everywhere all at once. You see that it's, she's left with the same end concept of the life in front of her that she chose is also a good one. And she can make the most of it right here, similar to how it ends with Nora. But I liked this specific quote because it is something kind of a little bit further. Also, where for the people that kind of have that constant itch to experience everything new that I could be here. I could be halfway across the [00:08:00] world. I could be in an alternate universe, but I'm still gonna feel the same things and just that idea that I don't have to watch every movie in the world or read every book or live every single life. I will still get to experience all the emotions that come with that life in my current one that I think was an interesting take.
Kirti Mutatkar: That is an interesting take. Yeah.
Sarah Ahmad: I liked that and I think I took that differently from this book.
Kirti Mutatkar: That is so true. So it's like, so through the books, he's actually not saying to live all those lives, but in your current life, to experience that, right.
Sarah Ahmad: Not just making the most of your life, but every single time you get that sensation of like, I'm missing some train somewhere and I'm supposed to be doing something different, to just realize that everything you're going to get out of that change, you're gonna feel all those things and all the happiness that that possible life could, you know, maybe it looks different. Maybe the expression of that happiness is different and the way it's delivered to you, but you're still gonna feel the same happiness. [00:09:00] Your range of emotion is the same. So I liked that. I think that almost calmed something in me for a little while.
Kirti Mutatkar: Yeah. And I also like the other concept that we talked about earlier, the fact that when you live your life for somebody else and how that kind of changes your stuff in your life, right. Just reflecting back on my life and where I would've been if I would've done that, right? So in India, when you grow up, there is a pressure to be doctors or engineers and all that, which was never my thing. But you end up taking those sciences, you end up doing something and it's not necessarily said that this is what you should be doing, but there is something very subtle way of how the society looks at you, how your parents look at you. There is something in like the way you grow up. And how do you go against that and do something even to know what do I want? And that's something I was, I kept [00:10:00] thinking about it because it's so hard. You forget what your wants are because you are so focused on your parents' wants, your society's wants, what we see in movies and read in books and a perception of the world or what we need to be. And I struggle with that a little bit and I was reflecting back and thinking about what do I really want? That's a hard thing to figure out.
Sarah Ahmad: Yeah, I think Nora's character, especially in the beginning, we find her in a really, really rough place in her life, is the prime example of what happens when all those external pressures just break you. When you have so many different expectations from so many people you care about that, you know, like Sylvia Plath, you just don't make a decision at all. And then how even making no decision in fear of disappointing people...
Kirti Mutatkar: Is a decision.
Sarah Ahmad: It is a decision and it's one that didn't leave her very happy. [00:11:00] Yeah, I think that's very relevant and I think in some form or another, whether we see it or not have felt that from our family or someone in our life at some point that they wanted us to do something or they saw a potential in us for something that we just didn't want for ourselves.
Kirti Mutatkar: Exactly. Exactly. And that's the hard part to figure out. And going back, I do that, even in the Women in Ag group that I lead, I find this, I don't know if it's more common in girls versus boys. I don't know. Maybe both have it, but I see more in the women in ag leaders, they're always living for somebody else. And when you figure out what do you want, we actually go through an exercise to figure that out. People, you can't, if I ask somebody that question, they actually don't know the answer to that. They tell you the answer based on what they think the answer should be, rather than what they truly want. And at the end of the exercise they realize, oh, what I want is this, I thought I wanted something totally different. So it's an interesting exercise to go through, but I think that's, and then you go, when you come to my age, or a couple years [00:12:00] later, when you reflect back and you think, oh. I have all these books of regrets because even you did not realize what your wants were earlier on in life. You lived your life for somebody else.
Sarah Ahmad: Yeah, that's true. Even if Nora had done all these things that her parents or brother expected of her, she probably would've still had a big book of regrets. Exactly. And I think, again, I can't speak to the male perspective, but I think as a woman growing up in, you know, a South Asian culture where you're expected to really take care of the people around you, I don't think there's, I think the biggest form of rebellion is simply deciding what you want for yourself.
Kirti Mutatkar: That's true.
Sarah Ahmad: That's true. And I think even that will come with its own regrets. Because it almost rewires into your DNA, this need to take care of other people to the point where when you don't, that causes its own identity crisis and its own regrets. But I think, you know, when you grow up in an environment where you're told that your purpose in life is not to reach your full potential, but to help other [00:13:00] people, prop other people up so they can meet their full potential and in a way that can be very fulfilling, right? Watching the people you love succeed and then you know them looking back at you and thanking you for that. I wonder, you know, if either way, regardless, you know, now it's getting very Robert Frost where no matter which way you go, you're gonna, it's gonna be the best and the worst time. But
Kirti Mutatkar: That's interesting. We think it's an Asian culture, but when I lead the Women in Ag, it's not, I don't have any Asian people with Asian culture in there, but they have exactly the same thing.
Sarah Ahmad: Yeah. I think that, I don't know if you've seen Fleabag?
Kirti Mutatkar: No.
Sarah Ahmad: The show, but there's this amazing scene in season two where the main character who goes by just known as Fleabag, has this conversation with this woman who won this Woman of the Year award for a business. And they're having this conversation in a bar and she talks about how, you know women, we are born with pain. You know, from the time we menstruate to the time we go through menopause, it's [00:14:00] just all happening. You know, all these anger, fear, emotions, all this pain is built right into our bodies and men have to go out and they have to make up wars just so they can feel something, a half of what we feel.
And I think all that pain and guilt and emotion, everything that comes with just being alive as a woman is pretty universal. And I think a lot of that stuff you can see in Nora in the beginning of the book especially.
Kirti Mutatkar: Yeah. Because she is, I mean, she wants to live her dad's expectations of her, her brother's expectations of her, and even in her first couple lives, her spouse's expectation of her, boyfriend's expectation of her. And I think as she goes through it, she realizes her own things, that she would find joy. And that's actually the whole book. And Matt Haig actually, he explores this concept a lot in his other books, and I really enjoyed those and his going back and forth between different lives, different times that's a thing that he's [00:15:00] exploring. I think maybe something trying to, he's trying to figure out what all this means. I don't know.
Have you read any of his other books?
Sarah Ahmad: This would be my first.
Kirti Mutatkar: Does this book, reading this book make you want to read any of his other books or,
Sarah Ahmad: We'll see, I liked this book and I do think that there was a lot of entertaining moments, specifically, again, just the breadth of different lives that she got to try. And then you as a reader, the rest of us can't jump into a midnight library and physically jump into new lives, but we can read a bunch of books and then live vicariously through them. So I think in that aspect, it was really fun to read. And I do think I got a little bit of something out of this, even though it was a similar concept that I've seen from before.
But I do think my one problem with the book is that 'cause it is a rather short book. You know, you don't really [00:16:00] get too much into the meat and bones, it stays very almost surface level. And with Nora's mental health, I think the biggest glimpse you get is in the beginning, but they can't really get into it. So I think it would depend on what his next book was. Yeah,
Kirti Mutatkar: That is true. So he does not explore the depth of the mental health issues even through the different stories, because even the stories are not, you get that first part that she's suffering through something, but the stories are very different. They don't connect it back. That's true. I didn't realize that.
Sarah Ahmad: Yeah, and I think that it was a pretty heavy topic and a heavy place that we see Nora in the beginning, and so I think I would've liked to see her journey with that. And you know, if you're gonna put a character in that place, then you know, show us a realistic way to move through it. But I think at one point in the book it just goes, you know, that she tried a million lives and that we had to read or don't get to see, which is fair because we can only read so much. But I think if I would add anything to the novel, it would be getting a little bit deeper into Nora and [00:17:00] her growth towards the end of the book. 'Cause I definitely felt more connected with her as a character I think in the first half.
Kirti Mutatkar: I wonder if I know as the author himself has a lot of mental health issues, so maybe he himself was trying to escape some of the things through the different lives or living the different lives through her, and really didn't wanna focus on that aspect of it. I don't know. But he suffered, somewhere I read that he himself has a lot of mental health issues that he's dealing with
Sarah Ahmad: Maybe.
Kirti Mutatkar: It could be his way of escaping. Yeah.
Sarah Ahmad: It does feel, this is a good book for someone who just wants to escape into something. I think the first bit can be a little heavy, but when, once she, the ball starts rolling and she's in the library from there, it feels very like adventurous.
Kirti Mutatkar: Yeah. Yeah. So if you were to then look at this book, and if you're reading this book as bookshelf worthy, where would that land on your bookshelf? Is this next to your bed every night? Are you, do you give this book away to people to read? Where does it land? [00:18:00]
Sarah Ahmad: I think it's definitely something I'd keep, something that'd be on the bookshelf and I think if someone told me that they were struggling with kind of what I was just talking about, that existential itch to try something or they were having a lot of regrets over their life, this is probably one of the books that I'd say, you know, if you want a quick read that might make you feel a little better about that, then this is a good one for that.
So I think I generally felt very positive about the book. I know a lot of other people that have mixed feelings about it and it kind of just going back to how it doesn't really get very deep. But you know, maybe not everything needs to be, maybe sometimes you just want a quick read that'll make you feel a little something and teach you a quick lesson and you can move on.
Kirti Mutatkar: Agreed. And I actually, it is a quick read. It could be a summer read. It's not a very heavy book, but it does make you feel good. It does make you feel, it changes your, if you are like feeling a little down or whatever, and you read the book, it just gives you a little bit that spring in your step. I [00:19:00] think,
Sarah Ahmad: I would describe it more similar because when I first read the premise, I told you I thought about Everything Everywhere All at Once. But as I read it, it reminded me less of that movie and reminded me more of Disney's movie Soul.
Kirti Mutatkar: Oh, I don't know that movie
Sarah Ahmad: Soul is a similar in premise. It's a character who essentially he passes away, but he really, really wants to get back to his life. And so he meets all these other souls and the movie is about, you know, this adult character instead of, you know, a children's movie like they usually show at Disney's movies. But a very adult character, very confused about his life, who kind of has to learn how to re-appreciate his life after he's lost it.
Kirti Mutatkar: Ah,
Sarah Ahmad: And it felt a lot more like that because that also in a Disney-esque way, obviously they couldn't get into heavier topics. They kept it a little lighter, a little more comical, but still to a very beautiful effect I thought towards the end. So I think this [00:20:00] book, if you like that movie you definitely would like this book versus something like Everything Everywhere All at Once. That one I think was a little bit more exploratory of a family dynamic and it gets I think, more deep into that. So that one I think was a little different from this.
Kirti Mutatkar: And yeah, so that's true. That's a positive spin on it. And any other thing would've been it would've been a good book, but not felt like a Disney thing at the end.
Sarah Ahmad: How do you feel about the book?
Kirti Mutatkar: I actually like the book. I like the book, the things that you mentioned very similar to what I think and like looking at like I said, how people carry guilt and carry lived life for somebody else versus living life for themselves. I felt that was the biggest thing for me and I was cheering her on because, and I felt good at the end. She got it. She was living her life, the life for herself. And the thing I was saying earlier, right, when she was living life for somebody else, she was not making herself happy and also the others were not [00:21:00] happy with her choices, right? But when she switched and she started living life for herself. Actually even the relationships and everything change for the better. So when you find joy with what you do I feel the relationships actually strengthen. And people have better relationships with you, which you don't understand. But, because when I see a lot of females in my group and they feel like they're sacrificing something to be giving back to or helping other people. When you sacrifice and do it, it feels like a negative to you. When you do it out of joy, it is more joyful, right?
That's what I was reflecting on when I read the book. I liked it. I will keep it. I'll have the book, I will recommend it to other people. I would love to have more people join us when we have the roundtable that's the part two of the session and we invite people to join in and discuss this book with us. It is a good book. [00:22:00] I think everybody in my book club also loved the book. Or anybody I talk to, so, and it's a good summer read too. It's not a heavy, heavy book.
Sarah Ahmad: Not a heavy book. And you know, what you just said, reminded me of something else positive about the book. I really appreciated Nora's age. I like that the book wasn't, you know, she's not some 20-year-old who's regretting all the choices she's made in life when her life has barely just started. You know, she's a woman. I misspoke earlier when I said she's a girl. She's a woman. She's in her thirties. She has lived a life up to this point. She's had significant relationships already pass her by, significant jobs. And I think that's important. I think that that kind of just shows how, and something else that I liked about Everything Everywhere All at Once as well, because this is not something that is specific to any age. It's like you can get to any age and start having regrets and also turn around and appreciate life from where you're at for your remaining time. And so I did appreciate that she was someone who felt [00:23:00] like a little lived in
Kirti Mutatkar: Mm-hmm.
Sarah Ahmad: Who had had a lot of life experiences from before we meet her. I think that made the book more impactful. So I like when you brought up that, you know, the specific age range, it would appeal to a lot of people. It made sense to me. Yep. Yep. And I also like the fact that she likes books and they say that in the book, that it's the midnight library and she goes to books because that's where she, books help her, if it would've been a game or something else for somebody else. For everybody else it would be different. And for her it was books and I felt connected to her because she loved books.
Sarah Ahmad: That does add a little bit of connection. I'll ask you something else that didn't also make me feel a little connected to her. So not only is her version of this afterlife a library because of her own personal taste. The person that is essentially her spirit guide is her Mrs. Elm, her school librarian when she was a kid, and she meets another character who's in the same situation as her. And for him it was someone totally different. Who [00:24:00] do you think, or do you have anybody in your brain that you think you might see in your own version of the Midnight Library?
Kirti Mutatkar: Oh, that's a hard question, Sarah. Just flow with an idea of anybody. Any point in my life?
Sarah Ahmad: I don't have an answer to it myself. I think that I, similar to Nora, was very close with a lot of my school librarians growing up. I think that's just, you know, a kid who likes to read and isn't very good at sports. That's probably a universal experience to be close to your school librarian. But maybe a teacher of mine at some point,
Kirti Mutatkar: I, you know, in India we didn't have libraries in school, but I actually just met my cousin and he reminded me this, I used to go with him to all the different libraries in Hyderabad and there was a small, very small, so it was like one room, maybe it was [00:25:00] called the Mogul Library, and he reminded me, I used to take him every day, so he had to go every day. It was 25 cents or whatever it was at that point, and rent out books. And I used to come back with books and I think the person out there would be the person I just pictured as I was when you asked me the question I was trying to picture who would that person be? I don't remember his name, but I can see that uncle in there would be the guy I would see.
Because,
Sarah Ahmad: Maybe even your cousin since he took you around all these libraries?
Kirti Mutatkar: Yeah, maybe my cousin there too, so, yeah, because he, and he's around the same age
Sarah Ahmad: Yeah. I think it'd be anyone in your life that has at any point meant something to you or guided you in some way would probably do the job. It sounds like this Mrs. Elm character, the reason why she's significant wasn't and I might be wrong, I might be remembering this wrong, but I don't believe it is because she was a librarian. It was because after her dad passed, or maybe [00:26:00] her mom, she connected with her. Yeah. And she was a safe space for her.
Kirti Mutatkar: That's true. Yeah. Yeah. So you, do you have anybody you said?
Sarah Ahmad: I think it would probably be a teacher of mine. I can't decide if it would be my first grade teacher who, whenever my grandmother would walk me to school in the morning, and she was coming from India, didn't realize kind of that school timings were different. So I also wore a uniform to public school my first year of school, because that was also something they weren't used to here. So I was the girl with oiled braids wearing a uniform coming to school too early. So my first grade teacher did a lot of, you know, soaking up my tears when that first year of like, I think it was kindergarten.
But there's also, I think my history teacher in high school, he was really important to me applying to colleges and everything. He was very like. I was a very angsty teenager and he was like, get outta here. He was like, he just, I remember one day he brought me, I had a really rough time at home because of things going [00:27:00] on, and the next day he called me into his class and he had brought me a bunch of college brochures and he was like, take these, get a dream. Get outta here.
So I think maybe someone like him too would probably knock some sense into me in the afterlife.
Something else I wanted to bring up about the book that for me was very significant. But I felt like it was tucked away at the end is that she, one of the last lives she went, she lives is, you know, she is really happy with, you know, with the kid and everything. And I don't know how much I can give away, but she is pretty pleased with one of the lives and she doesn't wanna leave. It is essentially the concept. And I remember thinking, how happy I was for her to find it, but I remember just getting so angry. 'Cause I'm just like, you gotta go. You have to get out of there because it's just, I think I just believed and I didn't realize how much I believe that it's not worth it unless you've earned it.
And so I liked that she also kind of had to learn that lesson. It's a smaller lesson tucked into it that I think, you know, in the face of [00:28:00] everything else she learns through the book. But I like that also happened.
But yes, there was some part of me that yearned, I both simultaneously wanted that great life for her. And also I wanted her to just, you know, understand that it's not your life.
Kirti Mutatkar: Walk away.
Sarah Ahmad: There's this movie I keep referencing movies.
Kirti Mutatkar: Good. That's good.
Sarah Ahmad: There's this movie with Nicholas Cage in it from like the early two thousands called Family Man. Have you seen it?
Kirti Mutatkar: Oh yeah. I think I've seen it, but I don't remember the exact details, which I'm always like that
Sarah Ahmad: Like almost like a spin of Ghost of Christmas Past. But essentially he gets thrown into this alternate life where him and his like high school sweetheart stayed together. And instead of this like high powered executive, he's now literally a family man with like two kids and a wife and he hates it. And then by the end of the movie, he doesn't wanna leave. That's like, he is like fighting with a ghost, saying like, don't you dare, those are my kids. Those are my kids. Even though, I mean, he didn't live the life before that. And I felt, I remember seeing that movie and I had the same feeling of just like, on one [00:29:00] hand I watched this whole thing and I watched him become a family guy and I want him to keep the family, but on another hand, I'm like, that's not your life. You have to earn it. You have to feel it. So yeah, mixed feelings with that movie too.
Kirti Mutatkar: And everything about that life was perfect. It was perfect. So maybe it's been perfect, but yeah. Yeah. Yeah, that's true. So anything else we missed?
Sarah Ahmad: You know, there's a fun exercise that when I met Brenna, he had me do unrelated to the podcast really. But he told me he was writing an obituary for himself.
And then I thought that was so funny. So I went and wrote an obituary, except I realized after I wrote it as a joke and I sent it to him that he meant he was writing a very serious one about his life, like really reflecting on it. And then I wrote a very silly one. But I had a lot of fun writing that, and I thought about that little thing that we did from like five years ago, four years ago while reading the book. Because I feel like that's a good exercise to think about, like reflect on where you're at in life so [00:30:00] far, but also where you hope to be by the time. Yeah.
Kirti Mutatkar: Yeah, actually that's a good exercise to do it every couple years to see, because that brings it, that kind of clarifies in your head where, what you want it to be known for or what was your life like? Right? I think that that's a great exercise to do. So you just, how did you do it? So if somebody's listening and they wanna do it, what do they do?
Sarah Ahmad: I took a more comical point of view from it. I thought about things I'd wanna have accomplished by then, so it was a little realistic. But then I essentially just had fun with it. I chose to also put a bit of my personality into it, throw in a message for my possible future kids. I really, I don't think there's any specific format, but, just, I guess think about who you wanna be by the time that you pass. And also up until now, what have you accomplished that you think is significant enough that you'd [00:31:00] want people to know? And it can be very serious or it could be very funny. I think me and Brenna did it both ways and it was fun both ways. But I think it's a good exercise to go along with a book like this if you like to write.
Kirti Mutatkar: That's a good point. We'll have more of a discussion on that. But thank you so much for being a part of this podcast. I'm excited to have you on the podcast. And one of the things that we do after this is I'm gonna have the first season released soon, and once that happens, there'll be a roundtable discussion and we'll invite the first 12 people to join us on the roundtable discussion.
So I'm looking forward to that. So thank you. Thank you for making the time to come and do this with me.
Sarah Ahmad: Thanks for having me. I've never done a podcast before, but I do like books. So that was fun.
Kirti Mutatkar: Thank you.