Personal development is boring.

Today I decided I would relax and read a book. I walked over to my kitchen bookshelf where I keep my "to read next" selections and wondered what I was thinking when I stocked that shelf. For my reading pleasure I could . . . . learn to be creative, get organized, train my dogs to mind me, be a better teacher, lose weight, eat like a diabetic . . . . the shelf is too long to go on. What stressful reading I've lined up for myself! I must have really thought I suck at a lot of things. I'm wondering just how many more things I need to learn before I can lighten up and read a story or something for pure entertainment. I'm starting to question how worthwhile it is to keep trying to be better at everything.

I know why I bought those books. There was a slight high that came from choosing this lineup of books that could potentially be LIFE CHANGING. They represented hope and purpose. But when I looked at all those books together today I had a moment of clarity where I recognized the stages of my "personal development cycle." Read. Learn. Plan. Try. Fail. Buy a different book. Read. Learn a little more. Plan a lot more carefully. Give up. Why try again, it didn't work last time. Choose something else to learn.

I have to admit that my development cycle is funny. It is actually a happy thing to discover that my mind works this way. I was getting bored. I was running out of things I thought I had hope of improving.

Just for fun I think I am going to spend a little time purposely not trying to better myself. I'm honestly too scared to make a time commitment for this experiment. I know full well that I am addicted to trying to live smarter and be a better person. And I'm not saying there's anything at all wrong with that for most people, most of the time. But for me, recognizing my cycle today made me say to myself, "This has got to stop!" I want to see what will happen if I spend a little while operating with only the knowledge I already have. I want to see if I can enjoy life a little bit more, and spend less time worrying about whether it could possibly be better.

Before I sat down to write I picked up a book of short stories edited by an author I like. I had to get it out of the middle of a stack of books I'd put to the side in an out of the way place. Tonight I will experiment with reading "just for the fun of it." For tonight, I will be satisfied with the person I already am.