Reading Helps People Find Peace
Mindfulness and Living in the Moment By Reading a Good Book
Sep 22, 2009
In today's fast-paced society, with overwhelming responsibilities and hectic schedules, how can a person find time to relax, let alone find peace within the world and within himself?
The first step toward more peaceful living involves learning to live in the moment, and one way to live in the moment is by getting lost in a good book.
Dive into Another World – Live in the Moment By Reading a Good Book
Reading a thought-provoking book — a fiction book or a nonfiction book — helps a person focus on the moment, achieving a form of mindfulness. When a reader becomes lost in a story, other responsibilities in life take a back seat. It's hard for the mind to wander when it's preoccupied with a thoughtful book. Whether fiction or nonfiction, a book that makes its reader lose himself in the page or ponder the complexities of every sentence keeps the reader in the moment with the author.
The key is the intense focus. Focusing on only one item — the words and ideas expressed on the page — the reader momentarily steps away from the fast pace of real life. In that step away from life, into the concepts introduced on the page, the reader finds momentary peace.
The Reading Experience – Fiction Book vs. Nonfiction Book
Both fiction books and nonfiction books can take a person away from day-to-day responsibilities. Fiction books do so in a more obvious way, by creating elaborate worlds where the reader imagines himself or herself in the roles of the characters.
Nonfiction books can also help a person focus on the moment by making the reader think about a complex or emotional topic or by teaching the reader about living in the moment or other spiritual topics.
Whether fiction or nonfiction, the critical aspect is the book author’s ability to draw a reader into the story.
Possible Books to Read to Help Learn to Live in the Moment
The following book suggestions could help some readers learn to live in the moment, both though reading fiction and nonfiction works:
- The New Earth by Eckhart Tolle
- The Power of Now by Eckhart Tolle
- The Shack by Wm. Paul Young
- Broken Open by Elizabeth Lesser
- The Seeker’s Guide by Elizabeth Lesser
- The Chronicles of Narnia by C.S. Lewis
Some of these books help by teaching more about living in the moment, finding peace, or growing closer to their spiritual side. Others help by creating a world where readers can focus on such realistic details that they feel they are living in the world with the characters in the book.
Many other fiction and nonfiction books can also help, and people should choose books on the topics they enjoy reading. Whatever subject matter or genre is chosen, the key factor is to focus on the words and ideas in the pages of the book, excluding other thoughts from the mind for just a short while.
How Reading Helps People Find Peace in Everyday Life
At moments like these, when a person focuses so completely on the words of the page, it becomes possible to set the hectic world aside. Just for a moment, a student stops studying and reads for enjoyment. Just for a moment, a woman forgets about a troubled marriage or a disagreement at work. For just a moment, the pressures of life are forgotten, and problems live somewhere else, temporarily existing outside of a person.
Focusing on the words in the book (the concepts, characters, and plots) — essentially living in another world or focusing on another's ideas — overwhelms a person’s senses, making all else disappear. This happens for just a moment, and then the next and the next, until many moments have passed.
If a person spends enough time reading — fiction books, nonfiction books, or other reading materials — living these moments outside of everyday responsibilities, then those peaceful moments start to stay with him, helping him find peace amidst the craziness of daily life.
Living in the moment can be learned in many ways. Reading a good book that draws a person into its world is one way to achieve moment-by-moment living – and to find peace.
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