Book Review: Before You Leap

I just finished reading a book written by a fifty year old. A fifty year old frog. The book is titled “Before You Leap: A Frog’s-Eye View of Life’s Greatest Lessons” by Kermit The Frog. Yep, a book written by a Muppet. I needed a light-hearted read and this book didn’t disappoint me. I knew it was going to be a fun read when I saw some of the chapter titles parodying self-help books such as:

• When Bad Things Happen to Good Frogs
• Don’t Sweat the Small Bugs (And They’re All Small Bugs)
• Moving Your Own Cheese

To give you an idea what the book is like, here are some excerpts:

Life Lessons from Rowlf the Dog: You should never bite the hand that feeds you. It’s not kind. It’s not sanitary. And rabies shots hurt like the dickens.

Gonzo:That which doesn’t kill us makes us stronger, even as it exponentially increases our health insurance premiums.

Kermit The Frog interviewing Waldorf and Stattler:

Kermit: So anyway, what’s it like being old?
Statler: It’s like being young, only slower and with a lot more sounds you can’t identify.

There is a section in the book titled Find Time for Free Time. Bummer. I definitely didn’t want to read this. My life has been pretty busy lately with work and home and work and classes and work. Did I mention that work has been busy? So at this point I wasn’t really in the mood for advice from a Muppet. But I got it anyway.

Taking it easy is something that a lot of people simply forget to do. They get so caught up in their day-to-day struggle to make a living and get ahead that they don’t enjoy themselves. They don’t stop to smell the roses, sit back to watch the sunset, or, my personal favorite, pause to pluck a banjo on the bayou. – Kermit The Frog

Wow! This hits a little to close to home. Not the banjo, but finding free time. It’s been a while since I have purposely found free time – time to play my guitars, time to read my stack of books that lay in the corner that I’m going to get to “some day”. I have lists for all my “some day” stuff. I even have piles of “some day” stuff all over the floor in my office at home. “Some day” will never come unless I take the time to find it. I think I’ll go read another book.

Why is it so important to find something to do with your free time? Because, if you don’t, someone else will.