He finally put his foot down.

Maxwell contacted a temporary job agency, which provided him enough occasional work to pay his bills. But none of the companies that he was sent to were hiring. So Maxwell was excited about finally getting an interview for a steady job.

Samuel was back at the thrift shop. He had walked into the shop with only one goal in mind—to find a book that he had NOT bought yesterday. The book was one of seven that he had piled up yesterday. He was going to buy all of them. But at the last moment, he changed his mind. He put all seven back on the shelf.

Samuel had a personal library at home that exceeded 1,000 books—almost all unread. He subscribed to seven magazines and one daily newspaper. Samuel had more reading material in his small apartment than he could finish in two lifetimes, yet his urge to buy more books raged on.

He finally put his foot down. Not one more book, he told himself, unless it was really special. Yesterday’s book fit the bill. It was a biography of one of his favorite authors—Stephen King. King is one of America’s most popular fiction authors. But it wasn’t easy for King; early in his career, he got hundreds of rejection slips. Samuel wanted to be a great writer. King was his role model.

Samuel immediately found one of the books he had piled up yesterday, and then another one. All right, he thought. This was going to be easy. In minutes, he found all the books that he had held in his hands yesterday, except one—the Stephen King book. Gee, what a surprise, he thought. The one book that I want to find is the one book that I can’t find.