Reading books sounds dreadful, awful even, to a lot of people. Reading takes so much time and can be so inconvenient. Plus, finding a good book takes work, more effort than even I am willing to put in. Window shopping books can be fun, but actually reading them sucks.
We all read, though. We have to. Words surround us in this world, there’s nowhere to go without them.
Most of us have no time to read for pleasure and leisure nowadays. A lot of us have no interest in doing so. Why would we? If we don’t need them to survive, why would we want to add “unnecessary” materials to our plates? What is the point?
I asked myself those questions a lot the past few years. Since the birth of my youngest sister, who’s five now, I had neither the time nor interest in reading for pleasure. I was too busy studying, changing diapers, making bottles…no time, no place, no point. As I’ve reached a breaking point in my life, I turned to books to pull me through. My Kindle account and physical books are my sanctity. I need them now.
Books are a whole new world, a whole escape from the reality we live. No matter how good or how bad things get, life keeps going, keeps happening, and we have to live it. Books reflect that. The best books are not the ones that give us new concepts and thoughts; they are the ones that show us what we have been thinking about for so long but refuse to acknowledge. The ideas that you have always had but thought no one else thought about. The ones that make us feel less alone.
Benefits
The benefits of reading go beyond finding connection; it matters for so many more reasons.
According to Psychology Today, reading can boost your academic achievement and reduce stress. By drawing your attention to something else, a situation in which there is already definite control and happenings, your stress levels reduce significantly because you don’t have to worry about it so much. And it’s not secret that books have that nifty habit of boosting IQ, increasing vocabulary and “brain bandwidth.” Cognition, language, and visual processings have all shown to see significant improvement after reading for pleasure for a certain period of time.
Science Magazine found that reading can reduce bitchiness as well. Oh, my apologies…let me rephrase. Reading can improve levels of empathy and emotional awareness. Not to mention, situations that require more emotional and critical thought become easier for someone when they read literary fiction regularly, even for just a few minutes a day.
Bottomline: Reading is good for us.
It won’t cure depression or get rid of anxiety. It won’t physically from a bad situation or get you an A on a test you’d usually receive a C on. However, it can make things better. It can be the escape you need to feel better, even for a short while.
I can testify to that. The joy that reading used to bring me came from feeling seen by the characters roaming the pages, taking me far away from the instabilities I experienced as a child. In one year, I would read anywhere from 20 to 30 books. Chapter books, picture books, nonfiction.
As an adult, my rediscovery of my love for books made me cry. Ugly cry. Not because they were bad, but because I finally felt relieved. Seen and heard in a way that not even my fiancé could make me feel. That no one could make me feel.
Some thoughts I’ve always had, I never understood. The books, though, helped me identify and see them a little bit better. Authors have a way of doing that.
ROMANTICIZE everything you read…
Even if you hate reading, my number one bit of advice is to ROMANTICIZE everything you read. The books you see, the words on the page. Everything. Let yourself be delulu to find the solulu to this prolulu.
Put together your reading list. Start with two books…finish them…add more…finish those…you get it.
Here’s mine:
