I Judge A Book By Its Cover

I like a specific cover. It has to be a soft cover. I don't like hard cover books. They are cumbersome. Hard to carry around, difficult to read. They don't lay open easily. Reading them takes effort. So soft cover books are it.

But not just any soft cover.  

A matt finish. No glossy covers for me. I don't care how good the book is. Or how many people have referred it. Love it. Rave about it. If it has a glossy cover it is not the book for me. I don't like the feel if it. It is slick under my hand. It gets sticky. It is just too shiny. 

But matt finish book covers. These are great. They have a texture to the feel of them where I run my hand. And the image is a bit muted. Settled into the matt in contrast to those glossy covers where the cover photo-lettering-image is too bright. Too there.

The matt finish cover is subtle. It's sophisticated. It makes me want to buy the book. Often regardless of the book.

Which brings me to pretty much everything else. 

I do this with most things. I am a really visual person. I take in what I see before I process what I feel. And because I move quick - sometimes too quick - I think what I think about what I see too quickly. I judge the cover of what I see. In an instant. And make an opinion about it just that fast.

I think I have always done this. 

But I am more aware of it lately. I see myself doing this. Which is good. That I see it. The first step in changing something that I do that I would like to not do anymore is to first be aware that I do this. I am in this aware stage. Actually a bit past the aware stage. I am in the aware-and-then-shift-what-my-go-to-thought-is stage.  

And in this stage, of awareness and a shifting of my thoughts and opinions, I have found myself thinking that if I do this - this judging the book thing - most other people do, too. Well maybe not as obsessively on the actually book choosing, but certainly on how we see each other. What we think. The opinions we make in an instant that are just not true. And so I think now of all the incredible stories that I missed because they were hidden under a cover that I don't like.

But there is more. I think of my own cover, too. I think about taking my cover away. On how I see myself. On how I form the opinions of myself that I form. This is a big deal. Because I have, for most of my life, judged my life based on my cover. 

But this is not serving me anymore. Because my cover is changing.. And so judging myself by this cover does not, is not, working for me anymore. My belief system about what is good - is good enough - is changing. As is my belief system about what is beautiful.

You see, I don't want to live on the surface of my being anymore. ​My stories, that have long been hidden behind my own cover, are powerful stories. And I want to live them fully.