Moving Along

I’m reading a book right now that has been one disappointment after another. I’m almost half way done with it and I sat there on the commode this morning wondering why I didn’t just stop reading it. I looked at how far I’d come and thought to myself that it wasn’t going to get any better. Then, I thought of all the days that I’d wasted reading this book.

I thought to the particular things I did not care for about the book. It wasn’t the story because I think any story can be made interesting. It was the way the author didn’t seem to be moving the story along. If you can imagine you’ve got a point A, B and C to move through from beginning to end to make the story happen, it felt to me like this story was moving from A to New York, to Myrtle Beach, to B, to Safeway and then to Walgreens, and finally maybe to C. There were jolts to the story. You’d be sailing along and suddenly a character would make an observation that had absolutely nothing to do with either the story or with developing their character.

So, in the moment that I was deciding that the book wasn’t going to get any better and that I could spend my time doing something more productive it slammed into me what this was supposed to be about.

The lesson here is that I could learn something important even from the boring bits of my life.

Life doesn’t have to be totally riveting all the time. It doesn’t have to be one thrill after another to count as a well spent life. The boring parts can actually be interesting too. And, if I move into more considering moments along the way I could make my life lessons count for more too.

And, with that, I’ll probably return the book to the library and not think about it any more.