Books...

I love to read. I read just about anything, anywhere. If I am waiting in line, I read whatever is posted. This summer I was able to read through two books. Neither of them were difficult reads but profound none the less. To quote Dr. Phil, had some "ah ha moments".

The first book I read was "The Last Lecture" by Randy Pauch who has since passed away. It was about his dreams. Wow... dreams. It got me thinking about dreams that I had in my youth and one I chased as an adult. Some I never thought would happen... never thought I'd get married let a lone have children. (That's a different post) I knew I wanted to go to college to get an education. That took me awhile to do but I did it! I liked how Randy used the metaphor "the brick wall". There are many ways to get past the brick wall... and that was his message... there are many ways to achieve your goal... you have to become creative in order to over come the obstacles (brick wall) to achieve your dream.

The other book I read was "Frindle" by Andrew Clements. Its a children's book but just as profound. The main character Nick is "challenged" by a language arts teacher about words. He was trying to kill time (what kid doesn't) and ended up with an assignment to research how words came to be. It started with one word: "frindle" and he realized if the word caught on and everyone used it... he could torture the teacher. In the end, the word blossoms into something of it's own and this word that he created to mean "pen" ended up not only becoming a thorn in his teacher's side but becoming a word in the dictionary. I think the lesson of the story is that when put to a challenge you need to become creative in how to overcome it. The challenge to this boy was to one up the teacher.... in the end, he did, when the word "frindle" became part of the dictionary. Pretty cool huh?! I checked Dictionary.com and it is not there BUT it is in encyclopedia.com!

Both stories had obstacles, challenges, dreams... and it is to the lengths that we go to overcome the obstacles, face the challenges to see our dreams become realities.