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Showerthought: I was dominating every book club chat for years until a friend in Seattle asked me a single question.
She said, 'What's one thing you changed your mind about after reading?' and I realized I never actually listened, just waited to talk. Anyone else get called out for debating instead of discussing?
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xena_jackson4mo ago
Oh man, that question hits hard. I used to do the exact same thing, treating every chat like a competition to win. Changing your mind is the whole point of reading, right? It means you actually let the ideas in. Now I try to go in looking for what might change me, not what I can say to sound smart. That shift from debating to listening makes book club actually fun.
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pats234mo ago
Remember how @wendy_garcia16 said to ask a dumb question? I took that a step further and started admitting when I just didn't get a passage. Last month I said the whole ship metaphor in our book sailed right over my head. Instead of people piling on with their smart takes, three others said they were lost too. We ended up working it out as a group, which felt way better than one person lecturing. What's a part of a book you've just had to admit you didn't understand?
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wendy_garcia164mo ago
Forget trying to sound smart, I started asking one dumb question per meeting. Like, "Why did the author even put that weird side character in?" It forces everyone to stop defending their take and just look at the book together.
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