Transforming Tragedy into Inspiration: How My Mother’s Passing Inspired My Work

Over 10 years ago, my mom died unexpectedly from a heart attack. I felt my heart shattering into many pieces. To heal my broken heart, I did something I loved. I created a Read the World challenge for myself. At the end of about four months, I had read 80 books and visited about 30 countries.

A friend sat with me to map the route I’d take to read the books. It was done in a way similar to me traveling to those countries. I ended up changing the route depending on the books I chose. I found books based on research, and sales associates recommended books.

The outcome for me was not as important as reading the books. It’s the first time I’d been intentional about reading books written by authors in so many countries. I experienced intercultural awareness and one thing that struck me is if we learned about people from other cultures and countries, we’d be less fearful. And there would be less violence in the world.

My Experience Reading the World

If I repeated the Read the World experiment again, I would approach it differently. And others might learn from my experience. Mapping the route needs to be a guide. You need to be flexible in your approach. The sequence in which you read the books should be a top…