Tuesday, April 26, 2016

The Value of Believing in Yourself by Spencer Johnson, MD


I had a copy of this book as a kid. I'm fairly certain it came from a thrift store called The Hodge Podge, but I don't know anything else about how I ended up with it.

A couple of years ago, I came across a copy at a yard sale for 50 cents and was so thrilled I wrote a blog post about it !

I can't say whether this book has had any impact on my believing in myself over the years, but I am fairly confident is fueled my interest in veterinary medicine and vaccinations! Over my many years as a vet tech, I'd encounter owners who didn't want to vaccinate their pet for rabies. Sometimes the reason was financial but it was usually ignorance. I can't tell you how many times I had a conversation like this:
                     Client: Why do I have to vaccinate my dog for rabies? We don't have a problem with rabies around here.
                     Me: No, we don't, because we vaccinate against rabies!
 Each time I had this conversation, I thought of this book! I'd think I know the story of Louis Pasteur inventing this vaccine and he did not spend his life doing that so people could decline the vaccine to save $17!



  *Side Note: Last summer I read a non-fiction book called Rabid, about the history of rabies in our culture. Fascinating and horrifying stuff - I highly recommend it if it sounds interesting to you!

So, to say this book was significant in my life is putting it mildly. I find it funny that there is obviously a series of these ValueTale books but this is the only one I have encountered in my life, and twice!

3 comments:

  1. I had a whole bunch of these!! My mom grabbed a couple while garage-sale shopping and it was fun to reminisce. The rabid dog part of this book was seared into my brain! Crazy!

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