Read books. Not too many. Mostly paper.

When I was a kid, I’d tuck my nose deep in a book and leave it there all day. I didn’t just read; I became the characters. A Holocaust survivor. A blind girl. A news boy. A spy.

Most mothers would have been happy to see their daughters engaged in the page. But not mine. Instead of cultivating my curiosity and love of words, she scolded me for losing track of time. “Put that book away,” she’d say. “When you grow up, your home will be filthy and you’ll find yourself alone.” What she meant was, “PAY ATTENTION TO ME!”

So reading became a guilt-producing, time-consuming indulgence I couldn’t fully enjoy if someone else was around. I snuck books in and out of the house. Stayed up all night reading. Until I discovered boys, this was how I rebelled.

And now, just as my mother feared, I live alone in a dusty home with a typically unmade bed. Since I work for myself and have no one looking over my shoulder — no parents, no boss, no beau friend, no kid at home — I can read all day. But I don’t. The cost would be too great. To me and to you.

Recent vitrectomy surgery has blurred my vision, so I’ve been living more so than usual in my head. It’s easier to write than to read.

So I’ve borrowed and bent Michael Pollan’s seven words about food. (Eat food, not too much, mostly plants.)

Read books. There’s no better way to learn about the human condition. With the help of books, we can learn to say YES more open-heartedly. And NO with greater conviction. To read alongside another human can be a great act of intimacy, but when I’m solo I read beautiful sentences aloud to the dog.

Not too many. Living in one’s head — or between the pages of books other people have written — can be just as suffocating as living with a rigid human being. If we’re mindful, we’ll know when to come up (and go out) for air.

Mostly paper. Paper books are inconvenient and inefficient. But they smell good, and feel fulsome in our hands. Unless I’m forced to travel light, I prefer to honor the analog. Don’t you?

My mother has been dead for 25 years, but if she were here, I would thank her for teaching me restraint about reading. But I would tell her she had it wrong.

Reading isn’t a waste of time. At least not because houses need to be cleaned or codependent companions demand our attention.

But this is true: Too much time spent immersed in other people’s stories will undercut our ability to create and live the stories of our own.

And, yes, that’s a problem.