As I was reading the Sunday paper this past weekend, I happened to look at the weekly “Top 20 Best Selling Books” list. While this list included fiction and non-fiction, only three were non-fiction. This is how it broke down further.
6 of the 20 books were Young Adult/Youth titles. Yay! Our kids are still reading! Boo! 5 of the 6 were violent themes where the characters had to kill or be killed.
Of the 14 adult titles, 8 were also violent themes. Everything from vigilante gunmen to assassinations to a 14 year old charged with murder.
Again, 17 of these titles were Fiction. That means that we, as a nation, and especially our youth are reading stories written with violence as the main theme. Yep, that pissed me off! But if you really get the concept of the quote by Earl Nightingale, “You become what you think about,” you’ll see that the themes of the entertainment you allow in your life will undoubtedly play out in your life – in some way. I once had a kid tell me his mom was “addicted” to courtroom dramas and reality TV shows about judges and litigation. Is it any surprise that this mother, on a regular basis, has a legal battle going on in her life? Custody issues, eviction notices, wrongful termination lawsuits, etc. She is manifesting in her life exactly what she is filling her mind with. Perhaps why this is such a trigger for me is because I KNOW the power of books and their ability to change your life. I know because I’ve been reading almost solely self-development and business building books for the last decade. Maybe as important as what I do read, it’s just as important to note what I STOPPED reading:
Romance Novels in my late-20’s because they were wreaking havoc on my love life. No guy I dated seemed to match my expectations. Plus the hero in romance novels was always the strong and silent type who could never express how he felt until the heroine came along and melted the wall around his heart and…alas, he was cured. So guess what I kept being attracted to?
Cosmo and Glamour as my main sources of information. Not only did I get the impression that everyone was have more and better sex than I was, I also constantly compared myself to airbrushed images of women that I could never match up to.
Newspaper (or online news nowadays). Just scanning the headlines of the daily paper was depressing. What is that saying “Good news doesn’t sell”? Agreed. Which is why I stopped buying the paper!
Once I freed up that time, I was able to devote more time to reading that could actually improve my business, health, relationships and finances. Next week I will share a list of books that have changed my life.
