Why I want a 9-to-5 job reason #5: reading.

“Books are the quietest and most constant of friends; they are the most accessible and wisest of counselors, and the most patient of teachers.”  ~Charles W. Eliot

“The man who does not read good books has no advantage over the man who can’t read them.”  ~Mark Twain

“Books let us into their souls and lay open to us the secrets of our own.”  ~William Hazlitt

“In reading, a lonely quiet concert is given to our minds; all our mental faculties will be present in this symphonic exaltation.”  ~Stéphane Mallarmé

“Reading is to the mind what exercise is to the body.”  ~Richard Steele, Tatler, 1710

“Until I feared I would lose it, I never loved to read.  One does not love breathing.”  ~Harper Lee

Reading, like grocery shopping, is a past time, a hobby even, that I think many people do without even realizing how special it is.

I love to read.  Given my current hours, I’m trying to make more time to read before work.  But due to all the other work I’ve taken on, I spend most of my morning, as I’ve discussed, running around like a crazy person multi-tasking my behind off, not always so successfully.

As I get out of work much later at night, reading instantly puts me to sleep if I try and read before bed.

I am trying to take 30 minutes before I have to leave for work to sit down and read, but it doesn’t always work out that way.  Usually I’m using those 30 minutes to make one of my infamous make-shift lunches or tie up emails, etc. that I did not get to during the day.

Reading is, no doubt, a relaxing activity.  It’s hard for me to spend 30 minutes of my go, go, go-style day relaxing, but I am trying!

However, due to the growing stack of books in my room, the activity now even seems daunting at times!  How am I ever going to read that many books?!

How it is that I can turn a relaxing, enjoyable activity into a seemingly impossible task says something about my mental state these days and my inability to CHILL OUT.

Hence the above, said implemented 30 minute reading program, greatly encouraged by those concerned with my stress levels these days.

I keep reminding myself that I’m working towards something and that soon a sense of normalcy and some more free time will return.

The idea of coming home, cooking dinner, then snuggling up on the couch to read a book is so, so attractive to me.