Reading

Most people know, I love to read, I read a lot, and I LOVE to read in a nice big tub. When I was pregnant with Ethan, I would literally spend hours of the night 'wrinkling' up to a good book...in the tub. I figured since I couldn't sleep...and the bath tub made me the most comfortable, I might as well spend my time there. So while Aaron slept, I read. Since Ethan was born, I haven't quite had the time to read like I used to, but, I still manage to get a few pages behind me each day. However, after just finishing a book...that took me the better half of a year to read, it left me thinking about the quality and effect of a book. I would constantly put it aside for something I deemed a better option, basically after every chapter, I would read another book...then return to that one until I got a better option again. Anyway, it left me wondering - why finish it? I turn off TV shows I don't like, or music - I don't care how they end or what they say. But with a book, I feel like I have to finish if I started it. Is it because books have such a deeper affect on me than a TV/Movies? With a book, it's just words...words that I make real and personal and somehow apply them to me. And for some reason, that makes me personally vested in their outcome. Anyway, I compiled this picture collage of the books I've read over the last year (or at least the one's I could remember or find a picture of) and reflected on what I learned, thought or felt. And I've made a new commitment to myself - that if something can affect me that deeply, I am only going to allow good, worthwhile things into my precious time (and mind). So from now on...if I pick up a book and it doesn't leave me with a positive outcome from the get-go, I'm putting it down for good. Now that doesn't mean I'm only going to read books that end "happily ever after"...or are pure fantasy. It just means simply this...we are here on this earth to progress and perfect ourselves the best we can - and I don't want to waste any of my time doing the opposite. I have plenty of faults and weaknesses to work on on my own, without letting "the world view's" into my life though so call great Literature.