I like to purchase a book from a place we have traveled to. Recently, it was Ireland. My granddaughter and I were checking out a local bookstore and she came to me with a book. “Grandma, this looks good,” she said, handing it to me. The cover read, The Choice. It was written by Edith Eger. At age sixteen, she was sent to Auschwitz. Of course, the reader can imagine what she went through. She survived and lived to help others with trauma as a licensed psychologist.  As she wisely writes, “We cannot choose to have a life free of hurt, but we can choose to be free, to embrace the past, no matter what befalls us, and to embrace the possible.”

I read her quote more than once and thought about how it was such a good way to approach life with all its trials. 

I need to read writing like Eger’s. She, like other authors, help put my own world into perspective. That’s what writing does—inspires, teaches, relates, enlightens and more. It doesn’t just have to be one genre. Poetry, memoir, fiction, nonfiction, editorial and more become the avenue.  Writers willing to take the risk, to put their name on a book, a novel, story, or article can help others, even though they may not have made it their main objective. It’s not easy being vulnerable, allowing others to view and critique your personal creativity, but it just might serve more purpose than the writer realizes.