As an adult, I’ve come to realise that life isn’t about finding yourself. It’s about creating yourself. Books are clay for exactly that.*
Tim Ferriss

You can alter the story you are feeding your brain.**
Martin Amor and Alex Pellew

As a recovering poor-reader,^
I’ll try not to be garrulous, but
just to say that books have been an important part of
shaping my life –
Even when we turn a page a day, we may be completing the book that will
change our lives.

There are three intentions necessary, though, for
shaping our lives or altering our stories does not
take place by magic or proximity to wonder alone,
And these intentions alter more than our future and present:
When you begin actively and intentionally
moving forward in your life,
not only does your future get better
but your past does as well.
Your past increasingly becomes something happening
for you, not to you …
Your past evolves as you evolve.^^

The first intention is to wrestle with where we are and
where we want to be (reality) –
For me, this involves reading and journaling;
The second is about space to reflect and imagine –
Coming up with the ideas that provide energy and meaning (imagination);
The third intention is to put these ideas into action (activeness) –
It’s best to identify the smallest iteration so that we can
move quickly and learn and adjust.

*Claudia Bedrick and Maria Popova’s A Velocity of Being;
**Martin Amor and Alex Pellew’s The Idea in You;
^I only really started to read in my late thirties when I hit a crisis in my life;
^^Ben Hardy’s Personality Isn’t Permanent.