The Midnight Library by Matt Haig

Hala Jaber

Staff Writer

We all have regrets. You, there, reading this paper…I know you do. Does it bother you? Does it eat at your soul? Perhaps your mind wanders to the test you barely passed. Barely because you should have studied more, and scrolled Instagram less. Maybe you think to your loved ones; how much time have you spent with them lately? And I’m not talking about time spent mutually in a house together, but genuine time spent—laughing, talking, and making memories with. Instead you spent that time in your room, or at school, or anywhere where they weren’t, ‘cause “I’ll spend time with them later.” Did you?

You think to your friends and colleagues and the many texts to them you haven’t sent, and the messages you haven’t read…you have good intentions, but life gets in the way sometimes. You should have taken that opportunity. You could have been a star. Would’ve. Could’ve. Should’ve. The trips you wanted to take but never did; the book you wanted to write but never started; the friends you wanted to make but never found…the future you crafted for yourself was supposed to be bright, but what you have now is nowhere near as illuminating as you had imagined. You think you fell short, but did you?

These are the questions I ask myself. These are the regrets, the worries that occupy my mind sometimes. I had such a plan when it came to my future. I wanted to be a star of my own, like we all do, and make my mark on this planet like a big, fossilized footstep in the earth. When I survey the past four years I have spent at this University, someone may call me crazy: I have amassed some great accomplishments. I have filled my calendar with meetings and my walls with certificates. I have shaken hands, met deadlines, stayed up late, and woken up early. I have been busy. Productive. Efficient. And yet, I regret a great many things. I should’ve studied more. I should’ve networked better. I should’ve spoken up, why am I so quiet sometimes? Every achievement I have made felt smaller than it should have, because somewhere in the back of my mind, there was always a version of me who had done it better.

And then, I read “The Midnight Library” by Matt Haig

The story starts with Nora Seed. At first glance, she can only be described as ordinary. Perhaps even plain. She works a small job (which she later loses), lives quietly (by herself), and carries a long list of regrets. She believes she has disappointed everyone—her parents, her brother, her former fiancé, and even herself. Her life then takes a turn for the worse, and when she reaches her lowest point, she finds herself stuck in the Midnight Library, a place between life and death. In this library, each book on the shelves represents a different version of her life based on a different choice she could have made.

With the help of Mrs. Elm, the librarian, Nora begins opening these books. In one life, she becomes an Olympic swimmer. In another, she is a famous musician. Her lives range from being a glaciologist studying climate change in the Arctic to having a family, a husband and daughter whom she loves. Each life seems impressive in its own way. Each one represents a “fix” to a regret she has.

At first, Nora believes she simply needs to find the “right” life—the one where everything falls into place. But as she moves from life to life, she realizes something important: no life is perfect. The successful athlete still faces pressure and isolation. The famous musician still struggles with the past. Each and every version of her life includes challenges, compromises, and unexpected consequences.

Eventually, she realizes that her original life, the one awash with regret and disappointment, was not empty or meaningless after all. It was full of things she didn’t realize were there, like connection, influence, and a quiet impact. Throughout her time in the Midnight Library, Nora begins to see how even the smallest actions in her original life mattered, and how her simple presence shaped other’s futures in ways she never even knew.

I recognized myself in Nora Seed. For most of my life, I had been treating my regrets as proof that I had chosen wrong—that the life I was given I had not used correctly. Like Nora, I believed there must be a better version of my life just beyond reach. A version where I said yes more often. Where I was more confident in class discussions. Where I studied harder, networked smarter, planned better, was better.

But watching Nora move through her alternate lives forced me to question that thinking. In each new life, she fixed one regret—only to encounter new ones. She achieved dreams she once believed would solve everything, yet she still faced doubt, conflict, and uncertainty. The pattern became clear: regret does not disappear simply because circumstances change.

Nora eventually realizes that her original life was not a mistake; perhaps it was simply where she was meant to be. To let her speak to you, “we don’t have to do everything in order to be everything, because we are already infinite. While we are alive we always contain a future of multifarious possibility.”

The Midnight Library does not tell us to ignore regret. Instead, it encourages us to look around it. It reminds us to zoom out and look at the bigger picture of life, and when we do that, we may see that our lives are fuller than we give them credit for.

You are where you are meant to be. I still catch myself wondering about the “should’ves,” but they no longer control me the way they once did. Rather, I remember that my achievements and choices have led me to being the person I am today, and that that person is enough, and exists within something much larger than herself. I may never see the full pattern of what my presence has altered, but that does not mean the pattern is not there.

We all have regrets, but as Nora’s story shows, life is so much more than its missed chances. When we step back and look at the bigger picture, we might realize that, perhaps, we may not have fallen short after all.