ontheedgeofeverything

If you were to tell me ten years ago that I would be reading for roughly 40 minutes each evening before going to bed, I would arguably laugh it off and deem it entirely untrue. To be fair, I should probably provide you with some context; I studied English in university and was expected to read a highly unreasonable amount of books in a given week (usually a minimum of four), and upon graduating, I was so turned off by something I once loved tremendously that I figured I would never rekindle my relationship with reading.

It took a long while, but I am extremely grateful to be reunited with a practice that once, and now once more, makes me very happy.

When I was younger, my genre preference was always fantasy. It remains to be my favourite genre today, and as comfortable as I could be continuing with nothing but fantasy books for the rest of my life, joining a book club has forced me to challenge my preference and broaden my reading with books I likely would have never read otherwise.

There have been a couple of books that turned out to be rather terrible, but, honestly, that’s okay. I figure it’s part of the book club process, and it’s inevitable that there will be a handful of books that don’t particularly tickle your fancy. But, there have been numerous books I’ve read as part of my book club that have changed my life, as dramatic as that sounds, and being involved with a book club has encouraged me to see and find the beauty in branching away from normalcy and dabbling in something entirely new and foreign.

This idea of stepping outside of our comfort zone doesn’t only apply to books, either. Consider it a practice to apply to daily life and see what could happen.

Photo by Claudio Schwarz on Unsplash