What’s in your room?

“A room without books is like a body without a soul.” – Marcus Tullius Cicero

I had to chuckle a bit as i read that this morning. Not only because i actually do have a book/books in every room of our house, but also because as i’m packing to move to our new home, i’m realizing how many i actually have. The kids always tease me, “have you really read all of these books?!” And while technically the answer is no, i can honestly say that my eyes and thoughts have passed across the words/pages of every book i own. But of course “why” – becomes the question. Why keep lugging books from home to home and from room to room if, “A” you’ve already read the whole thing, or “B” you haven’t read the whole thing by now? Well, Cicero answered that for me this morning. 

Here’s another analogy – one you may roll your eyes at, but one that makes perfect sense none the less. What’s in your fridge – your cupboard? Food, right? And why is it important to have food readily available? Because our body requires food/nutrients to perform correct? And regardless if you’re eating food to perform as an elite athlete, or as a CEO to manage the millions of dollars your company controls, or as a mother to keep up with and manage 3 rambunctious kids, or as a neuroscientist working to develop a breakthrough on some disorder, or as single parent working 2 jobs to keep food on the table and a roof over your heads…….what you eat, directly affects how you perform. In other words, i can’t eat Oreos and drink Pepsi and the best at any of those things i just mentioned. We have to eat quality, to produce quality. Should it be so different with our brains? Feed your brain the likes of Jerry Springer and Pokémon Go, and it’s gonna perform like Jerry on the Go – feed it the likes of Bradbury, or Shakespeare, or Miyamoto, or Thoreau, and it will perform at that level of brilliance. It’s as simple as what goes in – must come out. 

So, what’s in your room? Do you surround yourself with the smell of ink laden parchment and the wisdom of the ancients? Or, have you chosen to surround yourself with the glow of modern day technology and another Candy Crush Saga level up?