What You Read

What you read, what you see, what you listen to truly influences your thoughts. – Pat Williams

You are what you eat. You are also what your mind “eats”. What you read, what you listen to, what sort of environment you put yourself into, it all influences your brain, your thoughts, your personality. If you read racist bullfeathers, you will get influenced by it. Maybe this will inspire you to fight racism, or maybe it will chip away at your mind, creating a slippery slope where this is okay because it isn’t “really” racist.

You don’t think that this is true? I’ve got a challenge for you. For one month, read the teachings of Jesus, Buddha, Ghandi, and Teresa of Avila, and just these people. Every day, read some of this. At the end of the month, write down how you feel, emotionally, physically, spiritually, mentally. Then, for the next month, read the teachings of Hitler, Mussolini, and the Marquis de Sade, and just these people. Every day, read some of this. At the end of the month, write down how you feel, again emotionally, physically, spiritually, mentally. If you want to make it really interesting, without telling your roommate/coworker/significant other what you’re doing, ask them at the end of each month how they think your behavior has been over the past month compared to normally. See what they think.

If the two month end reports are exactly the same, that’s impressive and rare. More likely you’ll feel a whole lot worse after the second month but will have plenty of excuses for it, something, anything, that doesn’t have to do with what you read.

Whatever you may think, no matter what excuses you may have, the truth is that what you put into yourself influences yourself, and like a computer, it’s garbage in, garbage out. Treat yourself to the good stuff.