The Need to Read!
I was reading the dictionary. I thought it was a poem about everything. – Steven Wright, comedian.
Over the years I have become an avid reader of books and only wish that I had started at even a younger age. I can remember like it was yesterday the first time I truly got lost in a book. It was J.R.R.Tolkien’s, the Hobbit. I had finally become so bored one day chasing my tail with nothing much to do that I finally submitted and forced myself to sit still in a chair and try to read. What happened next to me was actually remarkable as I sat in that chair for hours…I have no idea for how long, but I do know it was the better part of the day. I can still feel the synapses firing away as I imagined myself in that strange and exciting place…another world. My love of reading, however, did not really catch fire until I had graduated from college, probably because during those school years there is so much of it required that I just needed a break.
Today, however, I have come to realize that books are the keys that unlock the doors of opportunity. Why? Well first of all, whatever the subject matter you are interested in, you can believe that there is many a volume written about that very thing from many different perspectives. No need to struggle and get frustrated, just read about it. The next and most important aspect has struck me more recently…and that is that reading exercises your ability to think in pictures and images. And why is that crucial to leading a happier and better life? Because you begin to free your thoughts and give them shape! We are all blessed with the ability to think, but we are also taught to suppress our dreams by authority figures who tell us they are just that and we need to be more realistic and follow the crowd. Can you believe that, the very engine of life is creativity and we are told to dumb it down. Monikers like “bookworm” and “geek” are the words we use to describe the well read. We become intimidated by those with an expansive vocabulary and accuse them of having better access to information or worse…being born smart or of the right gene pool! Ridiculous and ignorant! No wonder more people don’t achieve great things…they have completely eliminated their ability to imagine it before they try it! Remember Napoleon Hill; “What the mind of man can conceive and believe, it can achieve!”
So what if you can’t afford the best schools! Does that limit your ability to walk into a library and get access to more knowledge than you can ever imagine?! What is it that you want to know about? Then go get a book and read about it! Even better than school…you can move at your own pace! Take your time and go back over the paragraphs and the words that open up a new way of thinking. I’m telling you that the people you admire the most are most likely voracious readers and are so excited about what they learned that they go and share these wonderful stories and words with the rest of us, yet we’ll sit back and marvel at their unbelievable abilities! I know you are moaning right now envisioning that nasty old teacher of yours rebuking you for not reading more…or worse the pain of thinking about those old summer reading lists…I feel your pain if you are looking at it that way. But stop doing that! You need the exercise! Open up a book on a subject that you want to really know about…ANY TOPIC, it doesn’t matter…and that includes those romance novels! I’ll tell you this, if I was ever locked away in prison I’d be on my best behavior just so I could work in the library…it’s a guaranteed way over the fence!!
