L.J. McLean

I still hate Valentine’s Day. Let’s talk about something other than chocolate, the color pink,…. and love.

Recently finished reading 10% Happier by Dan Harris. It was a good read from Dan’s skeptical (at first) view of meditation and Buddhism years after his on-air panic attack. I heard about this book before from other sources, never got around until late 2020 (shivers from the number) to read it, but not a stranger to meditation. I do it, but not regularly. I noticed that since the 20th, I haven’t meditated much. Maybe because I feel certain and secure the internet is not a dumpster fire every day. The science of meditation, he delved, was very compelling. A chance for me to settle my overactive imagination after a bad day at my day job.

But it’s now becoming apparent that reading a lot of non-fiction, as a fiction writer and editor, takes a toll on my interests. For six years after moving out of Big Bear, I’ve read more self-help books than fiction, more compared to the college textbooks I cared to read. Most were writing books, but there were habit books, personal finance, how-to-live books, mental health, and a couple biographies. Always in need of that extra bit of help. Reddit was there, but I scoffed at it forever until I discovered not all subreddits are toxic.

Some insight was adapted from those books. Like bullet journaling. Did that for three years with large notebooks until I determined all the tasks can be done in a single Field Notes notebook. And there were bad self-help books I’ve read. One is still in my library and I’m still questioning why I’m still keeping it.

And the digital ebooks I collected from Humble Bundle and other sources? Who knows when I’ll dig into that.

It’s best to summarize is I read a lot and adopt what works for me.

I still read fiction over the years. It was a pitiful… two to three fiction books a year on average. Last year was Peace Talks by Jim Butcher, The Waste Lands by Stephen King (The Dark Tower #3), Dune by Frank Herbert, The Vine Witch by Luanne G. Smith, Ms. Marvel Vol. 1: No Normal, and Sunstone Vol. 6 by Stjepan Šejić. Not at all proud of the amount, personally.

This year, I’m putting my foot down. I have to drop reading non-fiction regularly and read more fiction. So, I’ve set a non-fiction reading list of what I have left. Here’s my list for, I hope, for the next few months.

• Practical Meditation for Beginners by Benjamin W. Decker
• No-Nonsense Buddhism for Beginners by Noah Rasheta
• Feeling Great by David D. Burns
• You Are A Writer by Jeff Goins
• Cognitive Behavioral Therapy Made Simple by Seth J Gillihan
• The War of Art by Steven Pressfield
• Buddhism… by Michael Williams
• A Moveable Feast by Earnest Hemmingway
• The Little Book of Stoicism by Jonas Salzgeber
• Greenlights by Matthew McConaughey (Audiobook)
• Side Hustle: From Idea to Income in 27 Days by Chris Guillebeau

It’s no surprise the connections in this list. Buddhism is not my following, but it correlates to my meditation and yoga practice, just to broaden my knowledge. The War of Art and Side Hustle are re-reads for me. There are lessons in them I want to go over again. And the rest is to help cope with quarantine until I get my vaccine into my arm.