Obligation: A response to “Commitment Issues-Episode 1*”

While Hannah may have commitment issues in one sense, I have them in quite another…if I commit to reading a book, I’m gonna stick with it until the bitter end, no matter the cost. Believe me, this is most certainly a commitment issue and I have lost months/years of enjoyable reading to my own sense of duty to authors who I do not know and who will never know (or care) whether or not I read their entire book(s).

When I picked up Les Miserable (yes, that’s my copy in the pic) I decided that if I’m going to read it then I’m going to read the whole book, not the abridged version…after all, the author wrote the whole thing for a reason so I should trust that he had something important to say and as the reader I have an obligation to fully understand his message. Thus, my stubborn commitment to reading books I am not enjoying is born.

I find it almost impossible to give myself permission to put down a book once I have started it. I always feel that I won’t  be doing the author justice and my judgement is premature and thus, uninformed and unfair. How can I have a valid opinion of a book when I only read a few chapters? Plus, I’ve already put time and energy into reading the book and I am not a quitter! As you can see, my commitment issues run deep, just in a different direction than Hannah’s!

No matter your personal reading issues…

Read on my friends!