Outside Reading #1

“It wasn’t a mistake! It was a message to me” (Foer 10).
This quote represents the things in life that happen for a reason. Throughout life things happen, but we just assume that they are mistakes and don’t have any meaning. I feel like this book Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close does an excellent job of showing hoe everything in life has a meaning and a purpose. When we look at ordinary things in life, like a bird or leaf, we just pass on by because they are so typical. But, maybe those ordinary things have a hidden meaning. Maybe that song that you have been struggling to write is hidden beneath a bench in Central Park, or the speech you have been trying to write is tucked away in the newspaper. We get ideas from so many places, but when we are looking for something specific, we look in the more unusual places, when that something that we have been looking for is right out in front of us.
This quote also shows that people help in mysterious ways. The ways that people help may be so hidden and strange that we may not realize the help until we really look at the situation. Some people help in mysterious ways because they do not want to be recognized personally for their contribution. Which is understandable because help isn’t about you it is about the person receiving the help and the impact it is going to have on their life. Other people help in mysterious ways because they want people to work for what they want. They want to help people, but not just by telling them easy to understand advice, but by making them look deeper into life and what surrounds them. This way, the person being helped gets more out of the advice or guidance because they have to think about it and ponder the meaning of what is being given to them.