The Power of Reading

For some reason, I had a hard time deciding the title of this post. "The Power of Reading" sounds way too serious, although very accurate. So we're keeping it as the title, sound good?

It has been just about 2 years since I decided that reading was going to be high on my priority list. It's funny because it took about a year and a half before it became a big habit. And now I am reading my ass off, bitten by the bug of knowledge. It is awesome.

Like many of you who might be reading this (all three of my loyal followers), reading was pretty damn boring throughout school. "Assigned reading" was like reading brochures on colostomies. It was avoided like the plague.

Now don't get me wrong, I would love to have read more at the time, but there were more pressing issues. In fact, if there was a way to digest books without spending time reading, I'd have read all the classics. But I'd also like to eat chocolate 24/7 and not be fat. Both are unrealistic.

So reading had been in the back of my mind as "something good to do" but there was never a pressing reason to read more. Would it make me more money? Not immediately. There really aren't any surface benefits from reading. The only real immediate benefit could be that of entertainment. That seems about it.

However, as I forced myself to read, I began to see the bigger picture of why books are pretty much the shit. It's self-enhancement at it's finest.

You see, many great thinkers and artists have put down their thoughts and creation on paper for you to read, sometimes hundreds of years afterwards. And you can interact with these amazing ideas and thoughts. All this for free with a library card.

You have every topic imaginable. If you want to start a business, there are more than enough books for you to spend your time on. You have comedic works of art by authors like David Sedaris and Kurt Vonnegut. Want to cook better? Please. There are more books than you could read in a lifetime.

There's not a shortage of books on any subject really.

And the fact is, you can read them, but if you are anything like me, "reading more" is something you are going to do in the future. You know the future, when you will have time.

Funny how that goes. You don't have enough time for an activity you can do for an hour a day. You can't find time for this simple little thing that could greatly enhance your knowledge, your ability to make more money, your ability to connect with others, your ability to see the depths of life and more.

Look around at some of the most successful people in this world. A good majority of them read a shit ton of books. Now, this totally anecdotal evidence for me but I find it to be true from experience.

So stop reading this blog and go get a book from the library. Don't have a book in mind? Check out Time's list of top 100 books. Go now!