By Jerin Jacob (Author of Your Epic Year)
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| I am confused, what to read... |
Early in this
journey of being alive, I was not at all interested in reading, even
though I was aware about its virtues. I remember, sometime ago a
friend of mine who was mentoring me about the necessity and greatness of
reading. “Oh man! I don't have much time, I don't even get time to
...”, before I complete, he interrupted me and suggested to try
reading just before bed-time. I tried. It worked. That was how an
epic reader was born.
From that time of
tasting my first book till now, I read and read when ever I could and
where ever I am. Most of the time my reading comes under the category
of “Reading for yourself”. You may wonder, by the way what is
this “Reading for yourself” is all about?
Over the ages of
my rigorous reading and watching others read, I have come to realize
everyone who reads are not reading the same. Everyone has their own
preferences on what to read. I have categorized the reading
preferences into two – which are “Reading for yourself” and
“Reading for entertainment”.
“Reading for
yourself” is a kind of reading which helps to improve you as a
being. When I said improvement, it can be spiritual, intellectual,
physical or social. Any reading which makes you better than yesterday
is “Reading for yourself”. On the surface level it looks selfish
but the simple fact is that to help others become 'better', you need
to become 'better' first.
On the other hand
there are people who do “Reading for entertainment”. As the name
itself conveys these people see reading as sheer means for fun. They
use reading as an alternative for any entertainment medium like
Television (they never admit though). This kind of reading involves
novels or junk fiction stories or crime stories or erotic stories. I
am not saying “Reading for entertainment” is bad. I would say
“Reading for yourself” has greater advantages over the other one.
Latest development
in neurobiology reveals that reading of a single sentence can alter
your neurons in the brain significantly which in turn creates a new
belief system in your mind. That means whatever you read has a
greater impact in your life.
So choose to read self-help books or self-improvement books, also writings
which gives you a new perspective towards life and people, like an
autobiography of a great person or a non-fiction writing about your
passion or even a fiction writing which inspires to follow your
heart.
A simple
comparison:
Reading for yourself:
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Reading for
entertainment:
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| 1. Gives you new perspective towards life | 1. Not necessarily, may be you can gulp the author's perspective |
| 2. Helps to learn something new | 2. Not every time, you are focusing on entertainment |
| 3. Inspires for your dreams | 3. Crime stories and such, may not inspire you unless you aspire to become a criminal |
| 4. Messages will be direct hence time won't be lost roaming around in a story | 4. You won't get direct answers; mostly you need to interpret or need to read the whole novel to get a simple answer you are seeking in life. |
| 5. Probably it will help you
to be successful, in case you take actions on the lessons you learn. |
5. You will make the author
and the publisher successful, never you. |
Hope the concepts have served you. By the way do you know someone who really needs to read this? If so, go ahead and share this article with that person. Sharing is caring.
P.S. Still there are some months left in 2015 to make an epic year, download my new eBook - YOUR EPIC YEAR by clicking the orange button below (You can read it from any smart-phone):
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