“I find television very educating. Every time somebody turns on the set, I go into the other room and read a book,” said Groucho Marx.
Reading has always been and will always be one of the most important human activities. This is because of its big contribution in the formation and the preparation of an enlightened and tolerant person; a person who has deep understanding of both himself and others. Despite this importance, reading isn’t given what it deserves in our days. Instead of deeming it vital and crucial, it is always excluded from daily schedules or put aside when tasks pile up. Reading time, I guess, must be on the top of our daily priorities and the habit of reading must be a part and a parcel of our habits because of its numerous benefits.
Where there is a book, there is no monotony. The joy a book gives is incomparable. Once you get immersed into the pages of a book, you lose track of time and space and you totally commune with the fictional characters towards which you have different feelings. The events of the books take you away from the miseries of life and divert your attention from the hardships you may be facing and, sometimes, inspire you and boost your spirit; hence you come back from the journey mentally ready to deal with the problems you left pending. It’s really a shame to feel bored while your library is stuffed with great books. All it takes to bid farewell to boredom and monotony is taking the initiative to open a book and a little patience and practice till the reading habit is inculcated. Once you become a book lover, you will find out the grandeur and the greatness of what you have been missing.
Aside from the great joy we savor from reading, it also contributes a lot to both the understanding of ourselves and the understanding of others. While reading a book, we get to know how fictional characters feel and think. We also become open to their different states of mind. This helps us understand ourselves more deeply and know where some feelings that we experience in our real life stem from. This also helps us know how to cope with some people who behave in some queer ways. To put it in a different way, the more you read the more empathetic and tolerant you become. In a nutshell, reading teaches us the art of dealing with people and being in control of ourselves, thus managing our reactions.
If books are able to give us joy and secure our relationships with others, they also have the ability to make us successful in life. Many books are meant to inspire us and lift our spirits such as: “The Alchemist” by Paolo Coelho and “The Power of Concentration” by Theron Q. Dumont. The first, being a literary book, makes its point through its persistent characters to convey to us that we can live out our dreams through persistence and perseverance just like the main character in the story and the second addresses us directly and shows us that realizing our dreams is within our reach provided that we give them our undivided attention. Almost all great and successful people are voracious readers; they read books to get inspired; they read books both for getting knowledge and stressing out; they read books to take lessons and morals; they read books to get and to stay motivated.
As I mentioned before, reading remains one of the most critical human activities due to its countless merits which I have just touched on. Unfortunately, the number of readers in our society is very limited in spite of the availability of books, both printed and electronic. No one can claim that books are unaffordable because they are everywhere and with meager prices. This said, the problem lies in our mentality and the way we invest our time; Suffice to go to the cafés to find them swarmed with people lazily idling away their time gossiping, playing cards or watching the endless games of football.
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Said Bouslama is an English middle school teacher. Said Enjoys reading and writing in English. He also likes practicing sports and socializing in his free time. [/symple_box]
