100 ways to slightly improve your life #96

A coincidence ! I realized after I wrote this one 7 March is World Book Day. To celebrate the day:

Buy a book to support an author.

Buy a used book at a used bookstore or take one out at the local library

May I suggest a banned book?

#96: Keep a book in your bag to avoid the temptation to doom scroll.

Yes yes yes this is excellent advice and would do more than slightly improve your life. I have a brown business bag that I take to work or on holiday. Inside it, there is always a book or my Kindle, ready for reading. I also carry a book or the Kindle to the theatre or the symphony and while waiting for the show to start I read rather than look at my phone.*

I feel sad for folks who have never felt the deliciousness of having nothing to do while waiting for something other than becoming lost in their thoughts or chit-chatting with the nearest people around them. Studies show people are afraid to strike up a conversation with a stranger lest they be seen as creepy but when they do the recipient is invariably happy they did so. My late mother had an uncanny knack for engaging in others while standing in line or sitting next strangers in a show. Within ten minutes she had them charmed into conversation. Good for her. I have a bit of this magic myself but with everyone engrossed with their phones it is hard to practice.

The complaint ‘I don’t have time to read’ is some what remedied by chipping away at a book while waiting for something to begin. If one has a book under your oxter or in your purse or Ghost Bag this works well.

Mind! Some people read on their phones and for all I know the folks on nearby are engrossed in ‘The French lieutenant’s woman’. A safer bet is they are doom scrolling – or at least being led about the internet. With a proper book nothing leaps off the paged to distract you down a rabbit hole – unless it is “Alice in Wonderland”.

The point of tip 96 is similar to some of the others in the series: spend less time on your phone; smell the roses; converse with your fellow man. Good for you!

*I have a confession and it’s an embarrassing one: while others are engrossed in their phones, playing games or texting or doom scrolling, Urs Truly is reading and feeling a bit superior. I would like to think this is ‘setting a good example’ but I know better. Not pretty nor nice but there it is.