Time to kill with the book!!

The strange guy in the cafe was reading a book. No phone, just reading a book. He has been there reading for almost an hour with that book, and he hasn’t glanced at his phone once. Not once.

Weirdo. 

That was me. I had time to kill, and I didn’t want to let it be squandered by scrolling through my phone with my brain half intact. 

I have carried a book in my bag for a couple of weeks now, but it has remained steadfastly there. I have put my hand on it and went to take it out and carry it to the cafe on so many occasions, but I didn’t. My hand glanced at it, and my mind blanked it for the handier and sexier option.

The phone was always the easy option. Small, compact, and it is simple to bounce around subjects and engage with a limited focus. The phone has been winning the distraction wars for so long that I have lost count of the days it has been victorious.

Not today. Today, I paused, thought about the book for a few seconds. Then I thought about the phone and then back to the book…

Without further thought, I took the book. 

Just. Like. That.

I don’t fully understand what happened with my thought pattern, but it is interesting. I was thinking it through but not really, and then something from somewhere made me jump the gun and boom, I had the book, and I was striding toward the cafe with a spring in my step.

Was it an impulse? 

Was it my father’s educational spirit forcing my hand, having run out of patience with my procrastination?

Was he guiding me from beyond the grave as he did so often when he was alive?

Who knows, but it worked. 

It took me about ten minutes of distracted reading before I settled into my rhythm and the remainder of my lunch hour passed so pleasantly quick.

It is a fantastic book – The Psychology of Money by Morgan Housel. This is my first time around with the actual paperback, and I recommend this book to any reader because it is more than a book about personal finance. If you get the chance, snap yourself up a copy, read it, and then hand it out and about the family, and they will thank you for it.

If you do read it, stop and ponder what you have read and take notes… you will need them.

‘“Reading after a certain age diverts the mind too much from its creative pursuits. Any man who reads too much and uses his own brain too little falls into lazy habits of thinking, just as the man who spends too much time in the theater is tempted to be content with living vicariously instead of living his own life.”

Albert Einstein.

I keep thinking about how I decided to take the book with me.

The snap decision to take the book to the cafe was a lesson for me, and it is something I will need to explore further.

It was an instant decision. Somehow, I switched off and turned on to the right call – what the hell happened?

Whatever it was, it is something that I can use to tackle my recent bout of procrastination.

I think!!

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