Paradigm Shift

It’s a cliché, but nonetheless, it has happened several times to me, and it usually involved reading ...


1981: The Lord of the Rings

1992: The Bible

1997: An unnamed popular self-help book (hint: wasn’t the Stephen Covey book)


Another shift occurred over the course of a month during the spring of 1993. I began listening to Rush Limbaugh, and after thirty days (or not even) my natural conservatism had reasserted itself after being psycho-surgically removed at college in the mid-80s. Though I’m not a devotee of Limbaugh and haven’t been for quite some time, I still listen to talk radio on occasion and probably agree with 75 percent of what the talk radio host is spouting. (For the record, my favorite host and the only one I miss not being able to listen to is Michael Medved, though he does hold a few positions I don’t particularly agree with.)

Other shifts: I guess you could throw in my first love nearly thirty years ago. Also the two weeks in August of 1999 I wrestled with the “m” word – “marriage” – as I contemplated the how, when, where, and what of proposing to my future wife. Moving down to Maryland – uprooting 30+ years of life in a cluster of towns in Northern New Jersey – was also an eye-opening experience, falling perhaps a bit short of “paradigm shift” but still a shift in perspective nevertheless.

But it’s the reading that changed my life so hard. Especially in 1992. The blinders came off, the invisible lead vest on my chest was removed, and a whole new way of looking at the world spoke to me. That’s perhaps the main reason why I read as much as I do (even recognizing that half of what I read is junk).

16 years have spanned my first travels through Middle-earth to that nameless self-help book. That’s about 5 or 6 years a paradigm shift, so I’m a decade overdue for one. Two, actually. I want my paradigm shift! And make it a double! On the rocks!