Why it’s ok to buy books and not read them

Piles of booksI used to feel guilty about books I own but haven’t read. They’d sit in piles making me feel unworthy as a writer, and reader. And no matter how many books I’d read in a year, I’d always find myself buying more. I couldn’t win. It was a destructive cycle and it drove me mad. It was yet another kind of information I seemed to be drowning in.

One day I realized there was another way to frame my behavior. The goal should not be efficiency because efficiency makes you conservative. As a writer I need an ambitious curiosity, not a safe one. It’s good to take bets on books at the limits of my comfort zone. That willingness to buy books signals to myself there are new worlds other creators make, and for the price of a meal I can purchase the opportunity to discover them. I can’t penalize myself for trying. If I never read any of the books that might be a problem, but merely not reading some of them is entirely sensible. The clothes we buy mostly sit unworn. Our couches are mostly not sat in. It’s rare for a thing to be used as much as it could be.

Read the full post @ ScottBerkun.com

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