What books do you read? Connect the dots

Right from my childhood I considered reading a book and completing it as one of the most difficult tasks in the world. Call it destiny, I was surrounded by avid readers. Somehow I never had the urge to pick up a book and read. Some of my cheap tricks to impress the outside included things like filling my shelf with books, sitting with a new book every day... Cheap tricks failed and I finally came to a conclusion that reading books is not my cup of tea...

But to my surprise, in the last 3 years I have read over 40 books.Little bit of introspection lead me to a good insight about my behavior. The habit of book reading was eluding me because I  couldn't find "My calling" in other words "my interests".

The big turnaround happened through a normal matter of fact incident. I was listening to podcast in which was a specific mention about a book on Marketing through Internet. Am passionate about using Internet for Marketing. This passion led me to buy this book. To my surprise I managed to finish this book in less than 2 weeks. Suddenly I realized my reading list increased to 5 books because I started to note down the references made by author. It is then that I realized that I was embarking on a wonderful journey with no idea of the road ahead....

5 books became 15 books and i started using the amazon application in Linkedin to update my book list.. I got a few people watching my list and started following a few lists. This lead to adding a few more books. I was of the opinion that the books that i buy were random/ eclectic mix.When I sit back and connect the dots, I am able to see a mysterious connection in the kind of books that I have been reading. What started out with Marketing through Internet moved on to Consumer Psychology( Influence). This in turn moved on to macro socio economic ( Economics Epistemics) items which lead to character ethics. When I read about great leaders like Mahatma Gandhi who have great character ethics the underlying message in all their teachings had spiritual inheritance.

Like how all rivers lead to ocean, my book list has eventually lead to spirituality. With great conviction I can now state that most of modern strategies and tactics can trace back their origin to religion or better still to spirituality. Modern marketing guru's like Seth Godin are talking about the importance of honest in business. 

As Swami Vivekannda says " Give me few men and women who are pure and selfless and I shall shake the world. Arise, Awake and Stop not till the Goal is Reached"