Can a Book Change Your Life?

“Finest kind.”
Hawkeye Pierce

Can a Book Change Your Life?

When I was in high school, I picked up the book M*A*S*H on a whim. This was before the movie and television show. The cover offered anti-war and sexy legs and the hint at comedy. What more could I want?

The first chapter has the two doctors in the stolen jeep on the way to the camp. They have been drafted. One of them says, paraphrased, “Look. If we do our job very well, then afterwards we can do anything.”

That simple thing shaped my philosophy in life. It fit into my work ethic which was to work hard and work well and also my own sense of rebellion against the world. And, it turned out perfectly for me by never being rebellious about my job but embracing it and doing it well; but after work I could do whatever I wanted … and I did just that.

I began to see how perfect this was in the workplace. People try to phone it in or they don’t like their work or they resent having a darn job. This adds to their misery because they easily become targets for nit-picking bosses who can’t motivate them. The boss finds fault in the smallest thing that they do.

But, wanting to do the job cheerfully and trying to find ever better ways; any small thing and sometimes large things are totally over-looked because the job is done so well.

It has been a success story on my part. I’m glad to be at work, I show up five minutes early to get the day’s news from my boss. The job is the thing, I am the job. I don’t want to tell you be rebel part; but you can trust me maybe?

The deal is: it can be any book. It doesn’t have to be some heavy tome that you wade through to read. You can have your life changed by thinking about a single paragraph in a story.

The key is to keep reading because you never know!