Stop! Sucking! Day 20: Stop and read
If I can get myself to do it, and the book will cooperate by being good, reading will stop me cold.
So far this trip, I’ve blazed through Steve Martin’s outstanding Born Standing Up, hit half each of John Jantsch’s Duct Tape Marketing and Beth Lisick’s Helping Me Help Myself (both pretty good, in their wildly different categories), and spent a glorious afternoon browsing the quirky selection at the excellent Quimby’s. (I bought a couple of items to read on the way home, too, in case I don’t get an interesting seatmate this time around.)
If I can get myself to do it, I may give myself the gift of an afternoon with a book—and only a book—once before this trip is up.
It’s hard to do for some of us, because unless it’s assigned reading for a credit-bearing course, it feels so…optional. And if I’m not already exceptional in the ways I feel like I should be, how can I engage in the purely optional?
Of course, stopping is not optional. It’s the other half of going.
Just because something is easier to forget, doesn’t make it okay to forget it.
So…what’s on your stopping list?
xxx
c
Image by dhammza via Flickr, used under a Creative Commons license.
TOPICS: 21 day salutes, Stop! Sucking!.
5 Comments, Comment or Ping
Andrew
I’ve been trying to get back to my reading list lately and yesterday as I was reading another chapter from my latest, I remembered how not too long ago I was thinking how I didn’t do much reading anymore. Now I’m sitting down (almost) every day with a book.
I have a habit of starting a book, putting it aside, starting a new one, etc..
I recently finished Alan Alda’s autobiography, “Never Have Your Dog Stuffed”. Very good. I’m currently trying to finish “All the President’s Men”, the Watergate account by Carl Bernstein and Bob Woodward. It’s a bit dry but it’s a good perspective on politics and I’m determined.
Recently, I also made my way through “Band of Brothers” and the first two books of the Dune series.
Andrew
Apr 30th, 2008
Earl Kabong
Just finished the Steve Martin book and E.L. Doctorow’s “The March.” About to start “The brief wondrous life of Oscar Wao” and “Atonement” which I somehow never got around to reading.
Apr 30th, 2008
John Jantsch
So, was it the good half?
Apr 30th, 2008
the communicatrix
Andrew - I used to feel bad about starting and then not finishing a book. Finally realized that life is too short to keep reading most things if you don’t wanna. It is a great habit to get into, though–the reading-every-day part.
Earl - Wasn’t it amazing!? The others all sound good, too. I’ve been reading too many biz and self-help books; need to get back to fiction, or at least get a heavier mix into the rotation.
John - Uh-oh…should I stop now? :-)
Apr 30th, 2008
Nathan Bowers
“Finish your plate!” is the worst advice ever, yet we apply it to books and movies too. There’s probably a vestigial caveman mindset at work because most of us have a hard time understanding “sunk costs.”
Anyway, if you’re looking to start reading something, my favorite book of all time is The Log from the Sea of Cortez by Steinbeck. It’s a memoir about Steinbeck and Ed Ricketts’ expedition to the Gulf of California.
Apr 30th, 2008