Reading more than just words

I enjoy writing six-word memoirs and mantras.  One that I've written recently is a reminder of the importance of reading in our lives:

"All the world is a text."

Reading doesn't just have to be limited to words--in a book or magazine or on a website or email or billboard.  Reading is actually something we can do on a larger scale.  And we can do it often and regularly.  We can read the world around us--situations or events that unfold in our lives, our circumstances, our choices, our experiences, our successes, our failures, our learnings, and our relationships.  What's more, we can read these things in other people's lives, too.

Reading is something we do actively.  Reading is perceiving.  Reading is learning.  Reading is growing.  And perhaps most important of all: reading generates awareness.  It's about more than just words.  The whole world is a text waiting to be read, analyzed, critiqued, learned from, emulated, not emulated, enhanced, or changed.  

So, when you get up tomorrow (and everyday thereafter), remember all the world is a text.  Go out and read it.