Are you ready for your unexpected journey?

With your permission a few paragraphs to set the scène, please do bare with me.

I like reading, and by that I mean I like reading books.  To be precise I like reading real books, books with pages and a cover.  You may ask why I prefer the low tec’ solution rather than the modern electronic version; well a book to me is about a sensory experience, utilising as many of my senses as possible, plus my imagination. 

By this I mean the feel of the paper, the smell of the ink, the visit to the bookshop, the anticipation of reading the cover summary, the need to use your imagination to hear voices and picture places etc. 

My choice of book varies from information/factual to fun and fictional, my preferences can be found on my Linked In and Facebook pages so I’ll not repeat them here.  I have no objection to seeing a film of a book, but after I have read the book and this leads me to the spine of this Blog.

It was with some trepidation I ventured to see The Hobbit – An Unexpected Journey, with my daughter.  (She was treating me!) I enjoyed the book tremendously, as I did the Lord of the Rings, but the films of the latter although technically excellent served to demonstrate to me how reading expands the imagination and allows you to flex mental muscles, where as a movie fills in the blanks for you.  I was to be challenged and surprised very early on.

What I had not expected was to be taken on my own personal unexpected journey as a result of seeing something I had not previously spotted.  To some of you this may be obvious, but i only noticed this during the first 20 minutes of the film. 

The Hobbit is a tale about what you can achieve, if you let yourself, if you stretch yourself and if you play to win, as against playing not to lose.  It is about leaving the security and safety of your, our, Hobbit Holes, the Hobbit Holes of our current lives and becoming what we are capable of.  

You, like I and most others, will have heard much talk in the networking world and among the “Expert Industry” about what can be achieved if we get outside our comfort zone.  Yet none, to my knowledge, use this tale to convey their point, what a missed opportunity.

Here is a well told tale about shaking of the shackles that limit us, cause us to shrink from tasks as we are lacking the conviction we are skilled, strong or capable of completing them.  Believing it better to leave it to someone more suited, someone whose job it is, someone who is qualified to do it.  If it is knocking on your door, the chances are that person is you, why else would your wizard choose to knock on your door at that time?  

So let me ask you this, if there came a knock upon your door just after you finished reading this, if that knock presented you the opportunity of adventure with a potentially glorious outcome, would you be brave enough, bold enough, to leave the following morning?  If not what would it take to get you to leave your cosy little Hobitt Hole, to start a life of growth, of adventure and achievement? 

Are you ready for your unexpected journey?

Thank you for journeying with me today and I wish your adventure to be a successful one.

(Oh by the way I enjoyed the film almost as much as the book and look forward to the next one with anticipation about what it might inspire in me.)