Chronicles of a Night Shift Part II

As I mentioned in my previous post, I have ample time to read at work even amongst the bustling all around me. At times the chaos is distracting, yet at still other times the noise is almost comforting as I focus on the pages.

Today, unfortunately, was a distracted day.

I am continuing my journey through a biography on Abraham Lincoln. Though he rose to being President of the United States and almost universally regarded as one of the best (if not the best) to ever take on that role, Lincoln started in very humbling circumstances.

Funny enough, some of his beginnings in finding a "career" reminds me of my own.

Lincoln worked river boats, worked as a surveyor, worked in a shop that had no business and was forced to close, and at times he didn't work at all. He would more than once promise to pay people back for modest loans he couldn't at the time afford. He was gifted a room to stay with someone who became a friend but rent was free due to his impoverished status. He scrounged his way on 10 dollars a month at times. A quick inflation calculater shows that this equates to about $260 in 2015 money. While prices assuredly are different, the point remains. Honest Abe was poor.

It was his stint in the shop that resonated vibrantly with me though. I couldn't help but think about what elevated him from Poverty to American Royalty.

Clerking for a store that sold tea, coffee, liquer, and other basic products, he found himself with ample time. Business was beyond slow, as I mentioned it ultimately closed down from lack of sales. While working and finding nothing to do during his shifts, he filled the time with reading.

He would sit in the back room, he would sit at the front desk, he would walk to and from lunch with a book in hand. His favorite position to read was stretched out on the floor or with his legs propped against a tree. He was described as lazy due to reading so much and, rightly or wrongly, this is a slight I feel I may be guilty of as well.

And yet, many great people of the past have exhaustively invested time into reading. I just finished a biography on John Adams, a founding father and the second President of the United States. He too read voraciously. Jefferson read at length before bed each night. Benjamin Franklin made sure to schedule time to read in his daily routine. The examples go on and on and are too lengthy to post here. Nonetheless, to bring the point to focus, "reading is important."

Yet here lies the rub: though reading appears to be an integral aspect of these men moving towards greatness, I personally lack the understanding of how.

How do I move from absorbtion to integration? How do I go from reading a book to having it change my life, and, at that, hopefully for the better?

So while tonight I am decidedly destracted from reading, it is more likely due to the rumination on these thoughts than the noise about the lobby. I don't aspire towards presidency but I do aspire towards bettering myself in the hope that I may better others.

At least while I endeavor to understand how I take myself from my current A to my hopefully future B, I have a job that allows me the space to muse on such things.

-Bradley