Changing Directions

I have decided this year to develop an objectives document, similar to the versions begrudgingly written by employees at the beginning of each year, to offer framework and vision to what I want to accomplish (and even to define goals) in 2012.  Noted financial talk show host, Dave Ramsey, frequently talks about the importance of reading and how it can change your life.  He is often heard quoting Charlie Jones, "You are the same today as you'll be in five years except for two things: the books you read and the people you meet."  Taking this to heart, in many of the subsections of my Personal Objective document, I have detailed various books that I want to read to support the section goal.  I have accumulated many books through the trading sites that I use (paperbackswap.com and, to some extent, swap.com) over the past couple years, but they seem to stack up in a tower of things that I romanticize about doing.  To add motivation towards tackling this reading tower and in support of the many books that have appeared in my Personal Objectives document, I have decided to document which books I have read during 2012.  The overall goal of this blog will be to read 50 books in 2012.

There, it is committed to in black-and-white.  I am not a particularly fast reader; my make-up tends more towards comprehension than speed.  So the additional goals of this project will be to document particular things in the books that strike me as profound.  Learning opportunities.  As I reach the end of each book I will write up some sort of book review (I may even post the review on Amazon, just depends on how they shape up).  Initial plans would be to describe the story or message, personal thoughts on the book, and (especially important for me going forward) to highlight those striking or important concepts in the book.  What things did I really take away from the book and want to remember if I am looking back.  The sideline benefit of this project is that it will get me writing again.  Writing frequently helps me to commit to memory what I have read.  Many times the analysis that I go through during the writing process yields some added nuggets of wisdom that do not normally bubble to surface.

Now, to be totally up front and honest, there will be a mix of fiction and non-fiction books.  I am relatively confident that Dave Ramsey’s message is more geared towards the non-fiction side of the coin, but I need to have some fun here and there.  There are insights and lessons within fiction as well, but I am fully cognizant that many of these will simply be ‘Mind Candy’.  I just have such a sweet tooth that needs to be satisfied from time to time.

I will start of with a couple books that I finished in Dec 2011 as practice and to set a tone and framework.  These couple of books will not count towards the 50 book goal, but they did contain some good insights that I want to document, remember, and share.  I have about 15-20 books selected for the queue, so if there are additional titles that you think would be worthy of a read, drop a line and share the title and quick synopsis…sell me on why I should read it.  I will work on developing the list as an article so you can see where I am headed also (maybe you even want to join me in the project).  Fair warning, it will be all over the map, as there are many things that interest me.

I am really curious on what will happen by putting Charlie Jones’ quote to the test.  Best case, I learn a significant amount of knowledge and wisdom, even learning to think (there are several titles in queue on critical thinking and how to be better at it), perhaps change my life as suggested by Mr. Jones and Mr. Ramsey.  Worst case, I read a bunch of books.  Not really much of a downside, with some real potential on the upside.