The Wrong Book

I love to read, so I’m always reading something. These days, I read multiple books at once, which wasn’t always the case. I used to struggle to read anything and so I didn’t. Then I got the message that for my life to change, I would have to read the kind of books that would help me change myself for the better. At that point, I would have bungee jumped, of which I’m extremely scared to do, off a cliff to improve my life. I was looking for something that would put my life on the right track, and found it to be reading. That was 23 years ago.

Yesterday, I picked up what I consider to have been the wrong book. I’m not saying it was the wrong book because it doesn’t have valuable information among its pages. You see, I hadn’t prepared myself for the information I was about to read. My mind was elsewhere and reading the information within that specific chapter was something I wasn’t prepared to deal with. It’s like being at the wrong place at the wrong time.

As an avid reader, I’m always looking for great books to buy and read. I’m always finding excellent self-improvement oriented books, and this book is no different. Here’s the scenario I experienced. After finishing Pat Pearson’s book for the second time called Stop Procrastination Now, which is a fantastic book, I thought it would be good to continue reading another book I had started but not yet finished. So I picked up the book Little Ways To Keep Calm and Carry On by Mark A. Reinecke, without even looking at the book or chapter title. As a result, I ended up not knowing what my current reading session would be about.

As I started to read the chapter called “You have the power to control your level of anxiety”, I began to get very uncomfortable and experience some anxiety, which rarely happens, but did because my focus shifted from my current state to that of thinking about anxiety. At this point I felt as though I had picked the wrong book. Why is this so? Because the feelings I had and that I wanted were in conflict. I read close to night time in order for positive information to dwell within my subconscious mind throughout the night. The information that I read in that chapter at that time did not serve my purpose.

It isn’t that the information within that chapter of the book isn’t good and / or useful, it’s just that in the context of my life, it wasn’t in harmony with what it was that I needed. This could happen with any content. Movies do this all the time as they shift you from your current state to that which the movie has been written to achieve. It’s our job as content consumers, to guide ourselves to the information we need at any specific moment, of which I did a poor job of, as described in this article. All I had to do was read the name of the book and chapter title to help me consider if it would be in my interest to read the information on the following pages, of which I did not do.

The point is we have to be careful what we read, what we talk about, what we think, and what we watch. All of these things affect us, regardless of what we may think, say, or do. There’s no escaping it.

After being repetitively exposed to nearly anything, one can become conditioned to accepting those new thoughts or ideas, even if they are negative in nature. However, acquiring a negative habit isn’t really an accomplishment, now is it? It’s kind of like the skill of being first to a red stop light, pretty useless. I’ve lost the tendency to repetitively think negative thoughts because I don’t tolerate it, entertain it, nor intentionally allow myself to become exposed to it. Negative content, regardless the media it’s presented in, is something to be avoided, if you want to live your best life, and most of us do. The good news is repetitive thinking can work for good too. But, consider the following.

If a scary movie doesn’t send you to the door of the theater due to fright or cause you to scream in the isle, or if a movie that contains bad language doesn’t make you feel uncomfortable and ask yourself, “Why did they include that part?”, then you may want to consider working harder on yourself. Because you have just experienced a tell-tale sign that you have not yet developed yourself to the point of being the best you can be.

When you’re reading a book, if it makes you feel uncomfortable, you can be assured that you have the wrong book. Either you aren’t reading the right book at the right time, like I did or maybe the book isn’t of the caliber to propel you in a positive direction.

Finally, if you haven’t developed sensitivity to know the difference between positive and negative content as described in this article, then that’s where you need to begin. It all starts with monitoring what goes into your head. Protect it from negative thoughts and fill it with all of the positive messages you can. To do so, you have to work at it and search out the right materials because they are out there, just not as prolific as negative content. Why is that so? Most people are captivated by negative information, not positive. Negative sells and content is often a matter of business, not necessarily doing the right thing. Do yourself a favor by not reading the wrong book or the right book at the wrong time.

Until next time,

Kevin

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