Today (well, yesterday) I had the privilege of visiting my semi-local Barnes & Noble, my personal favorite based solely on the fact that it’s the only sizable bookstore in my area. My mother and sister had decided to visit the Bed, Bath & Beyond next door to the B&N, so I had a bit of extra time in there completely unfettered by the concerns of others, free to wander.
It was during this alone time that a thought occurred to me: no matter how much I read, and how quickly I read, I could never read everything.
How sad is that?
No matter how hard I tried, I could never enjoy (or regret) all of the vast multitude of every fantastic (or not so much) book, even if I were just to read what was currently in the store. All of those words, those thoughts, those ideas, those stories and recipes and histories that will never be seen by my eyes. And to my relatively inexperienced eyes, those words may as well be wasted.
I had a moment of clarity yesterday during which I realized that nobody can experience everything life has to offer to the fullest, simply because life encompasses too much. It comes to us to choose what experiences we want more or less of.
Which means more decisions to make. Great. Anyone who knows me knows how much I LOVE making those.
I guess life’s like those Choose Your Own Adventure books I read as a kid, except you can’t just flip back a few pages and choose the other option if you don’t like how your choice turned out, and you can only read it once.
Maybe heaven’s a place where you have the chance to read everything you missed out on the first time around.
Look at me, getting all philosophical after I visited a bookstore. Well played, Barnes & Noble.