Executive Summary: Reading makes you a more well-rounded person and creates experiences that you might never be able to have, which will make you better prepared for future encounters.
I started with an executive summary because if you don’t read, you might not read this blog about why you should read. The executive summary provides you with a reason to read.
We are in a new era of reduced attention spans, and I believe this has also caused a decline in reading. Whether or not this is good remains to be seen, and like many changes, it takes time to assess its benefits or validity.
I grew up reading. My earliest memories of reading were of comic books and the comics in the daily and especially Sunday newspapers. As I got older, I read the sports sections of the newspapers. I never stopped reading comics, I just added to what I read. I also graduated to sports and movie magazines, and stamp newspapers. At some point, I read books. I don’t remember when I started or what I read, but it was probably what was assigned in school. I liked most of what I read, not everything, but I read what I had to for school.
I do remember reading adult books when I was around 12 or 13. My father was an occasional reader, and he had a bunch of paperback books he would periodically buy and spend almost the entire night reading. They weren’t as big as the current novels. A 1950s Mickey Spillane book was half the size of today’s Daniel Silva or David Baldacci books, which have over 400 pages. At one point, possibly out of boredom or curiosity, I leafed through one of my father’s Mickey Spillane books. It was either Kiss Me Deadly or I the Jury, and in skimming these books, I realized after a 10- or 15-minute period that I recalled the entire story. That was the start of my speed reading, without being aware of it.
I started a mail-order business when I was 13 and remember reading books on selling and advertising, and on how to get rich and some biographies. One of these books, I recently purchased a used copy online and reread it, and it was just as good now as when I was 13.
When I was around 18, JFK was running for president, and there were news reports that he was a speed reader. At that same time, Evelyn Woods was promoting her technique for speed reading. I bought her book, and my brother, Ira, and I took her course. Ira took it up immediately. I added some of what I learned to what I was doing, but chose to selectively speed read. If I am reviewing a book or a downloaded book by someone I will meet tomorrow, I will speed-read that book. I also speed-read newspapers and most magazine articles. If I want to read a “stupid” novel for enjoyment or a biography where I want to soak up the essence of that person, I read these in my old, slow, drawn-out way.
Anyway, I like to read and am always reading a book or two.
I have gotten many benefits from reading. I also think that many of these benefits will be lost to today’s generation of non-readers. These pleasures come from whatever I read, whether they are novels, fiction, non-fiction, biographies and autobiographies or even how-to books.
A big change in my reading habits is a reduced reliance on reference and how-to books. I explained about this in prior blogs. So, things do change, and these changes, as far as I am concerned, are for the better. But my reading for enjoyment or personal entertainment has not changed.
Reading: A Habit That Transforms
If you are reading this, which you obviously are, or else you would not be here! Here are some of the advantages of reading books:
- It is a form of relaxation or escapism where you block out your normal activities and can be taken to a faraway land, meet people you can never meet in person, get involved in the thinking of the protagonists including their goals, biases, plotting, emotions, anger, revenge, dreams, successes, failures and all of their experiences – written and unsaid. Sitting in front of an iPad or TV screen might also do this, but they are more of a surface treatment rather than in-depth emotional experiences.
- Reading sharpens your mind, deepens empathy, expands your vocabulary and word usage and exposes you to new cultures, some recent and some ancient, some close by and some totally out of reach.
- Reading can have you travel to lands or places you might never get to visit, times from the past or future that are totally out of reach or fantasy places that exist solely in a writer’s mind. These can all be transferred to your imagination.
- Reading can help you confront fears, vicariously experience forbidden actions, feel great success in an undertaking you never tried, or experience and survive nightmarish disasters you never want to face.
- Reading improves memory skills and stimulates mental acuity and alertness.
- Reading builds cognitive skills, enhances focus and concentration, analytical thinking and enhances decision-making and critical thinking skills.
- Reading introduces you to foreign language phrases or new words that are especially descriptive and more appropriate. This helps me improve my writing skills and style, especially with the many persuasive memos I need to write to clients and in the articles I have published.
- Reading broadens your mind by introducing you to a wide range of perspectives, opinions, and worldviews.
- Reading builds resilience by establishing reservoirs of experiences of complex emotions through myriad and sometimes absurd, unrealistic, and outsized encounters with characters you are reading about.
- Reading can strengthen social skills and self-awareness by introducing readers to potential situations they might confront later on.
- Reading broadens awareness and knowledge of many more experiences than one person might actually be able to encounter.
- Biographies take you inside the mind and thinking process of some well-known and possibly extremely successful people.
- Reading for enjoyment creates mini vacations for your mind that will relieve stress and anxiety created by routine and daily activities. In my opinion, people who take vacations and remain available for calls, texts, and emails with questions thwart the purposes and benefits of that vacation. A half-hour of reading can reduce stress more than a week’s vacation at a resort when responses are needed for constant interruptions.
Final Thoughts
If you are not a reader, a suggestion is to start a book that isn’t considered sensible, that would have no other purpose than to have you escape from your daily pressures. One personal story about reading that I recall is about John Grisham’s The Firm. One late March night, I came home from work (it was tax season) around 11:30 p.m., and my wife greeted me with The Firm, a new book that she had heard about and thought I would like. I replied that “I am working around the clock and don’t have any time to read this now, and it would have to wait.” However, a little while later, I started it and had it finished a few days later, finding it hard to put down. On reflection after tax season, I realized that reading that book, at that time, did not hold me back from my tax season work. Instead, it made me more effective. I was less stressed and better able to manage the staff, deal with clients and make decisions. I attributed that to the “vacations” I took while reading that book.
I could write a lot more, but I am stopping here. The bottom line is that reading propels individual growth and adds enjoyment and relaxation to any schedule.
If you are a reader, good for you! If not, why not take a shot at starting to read a book?
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