Forced Reading

I'm not one who has ever enjoyed forced reading of self-help books. I may be one of the few who totally hated reading Stephen Covey's 7 Habits of Highly Effective People but loved Scott Adam's version, 7 Habits of Highly Defective People because I chose to read it.

Perhaps I hate the fact the "popular" self help, self awareness, and yes, self development genre produces buzz words you will have to learn to maintain some sense of savvy in the business world. Honestly, are they really that necessary? Let me pick one of these words out and let's do some hashing....

Paradigm. Oh yeah, the shifting of paradigms, the defining of paradigms, the realization of moving from one paradigm to another. So we all sat around, rolling this word around in our noggins while trying to figure out the best time we could release it to make ourselves to appear as an on the cutting edge individual who was armed, willing, and capable of conquering the moment at hand.

So our meetings took on the Coveyesque flavor and we heard statements like "as the business climate changes and our paradigms are being transformed, we must be systematically adaptable in our world views to empower ourselves with the tools to traverse these unchartered waters." Huh. My granddaddy would have said the exact same thing in an unpretentious manner by saying, "The wallow has dried up and we're gonna hafta move the pigs to where there is more water. I'm thinking if we take 'em through the pasture we'll have a lot less chance of losing any along the way. Now get your butts off the pick up and start moving them pigs."

Funny thing is I don't mind being forced to read literature. Loved Shakespeare, the British novels, the Classical literature of Greece, and even poetry. I may not have totally understood everything I read but I didn't mind being forced to try. Perhaps it is because the knowledge gained from such readings in the long run would only be used by me when I chose to use it and I never feared hearing someone quote The Republic during a boring strategic planning session.

Before you panic and start thinking, "Egad, ol' Frustrated is a hard head that can't be fixed" I will tell you that I have forced read a few books that I thought were worthy of my misery and find myself doing so now. While this is rare, I do appreciate the practical when it is shoved down my throat and will even apply it.

I still don't like the concept of forced reading. Sigh. I guess I'll just have to get use to the fact that the wallows are continually drying up and I'm going to hafta get off my butt and move my pigs if I want to survive. Double sigh.