How to read gently...

Do you ever have books that you're so excited about and get so into that you end up racing through them just to get to the end and find out what happens?

There is then a certain pleasure and satisfaction in finishing and knowing how the story developed, but this conflicted often by a stronger feeling of disappointment.

Similar to coming to the end of great evening with a close friend or the end credits rolling on a fantastic film.

You wanted it to race through just to find out what happened next and yet at the same time, the closer you got to the inevitable end point, the more the sense of sadness and disappointment started to permeate into your thoughts.

So can we prevent this minor sense of loss?

Maybe we could simply replace the ending of one thing with the beginning of another. In the case of a book, just having the next novel waiting in line for us, reading to be our rebound fling when we're abruptly dumped by our current beau...

Or maybe we could just read more gently.

Savour every word, every line, every moment, with a lingering pleasure and enjoyment.

This won't prevent the inevitability of us reaching an end point someday but at least we'll feel we lived to the full, we enjoyed and experienced every paragraph as fully and vividly as we possibly could.

So try it for yourself.

Read gently...