Only Books

The story I am about to relate happened about seven years ago and is as clear today as when it happened. It was a bright summer's day and I was strolling down a high street doing a little window shopping with my fiancée when we saw a woman walking towards us with a young boy, about six year of age, in tow. Because the pavement was narrow at this point, my fiancée and I stepped back and waited for them to pass us. As they passed the boy made a move to go into the shop in whose window we had been looking. The woman, his mother I guess, pulled him back by the arm saying, "You don't want to go in there. It's only books."

And that is the phrase that has echoed in my head these seven years hence. "It's only books"...now she was right as it was a bookshop the boy had tried to enter so it was indeed only full of books. Books on business, on sales, on poetry, on love, on war, on indeed every topic that has delighted or plagued mankind since the dawn of time. The findings of the greatest thinkers, poets and dreamers recorded for the benefit of all of us so that we might succeed where others have failed, triumph were others have been defeated and maybe laugh when others have cried.

So once the woman and boy had gone up the street my fiancée and I went into the bookstore and what did we come out with? Only books - or an armful of adventure, entertainment, and learning. And that was fine with us.

And seven years after that story took place let me ask you a question; when was the last time you read a book that could help you with your career, your personal life or your financial freedom? When did you last read a book to make you think, to challenge your beliefs or to stretch your mind? When was the last time you took a lesson on business, or sales or life directly from one of the experts in those fields?

Or are they only books to you too?