Reading Books Will Change Your Life

One of the most important, yet unfortunately one of the most neglected parts of life is reading. There are reports that are sharing that 40% of Americans read at least one book in year. So that means 60% of people are almost never reading. And think that's concerning statistic. This is coming from somebody who's gone through periods in my life where I've read bunch and periods in my life where haven't read at all. To give you guys kind of background, was like the kid in school that was an athlete, kind of made that my personality. So you could imagine wasn't really reading lot of books, but sometime around the second grade, all of my peers started reading this one series and it really caught my eye. It was called Sisters Grimm. It was series about these two sisters who are trying to uncover secrets about their family and secret society. And it was like in fairy tale world. So there were like fairy tale characters that everybody knows, like Jack Frost, were in this book. it's been fat minute since read it. So might not be exactly right on all that, but when was however old you are in like second grade, was just mesmerized by this book. It was the first time that, you know, my imagination just you know, ran away with with everything. It was like words on paper all of sudden created this whole world for me. thought it was amazing. And then when was in middle school, didn't read at all. When got back to high school, started reading one book week and made sure to hit that goal for all of high school. And the reason that I'm making this video is because want to encourage other people to read and think there are many reasons why you should read, even if it's in your mind, less shall we say intriguing than maybe watching movie or just going on your phone. So the first reason is it really helps with your cognition. feel like it makes you lot more interesting of person when you have information regarding book. think you're you become more well-spoken, you can articulate yourself better, it expands your vocabulary. These things are obvious, but it also just helps with your overall cognition in the sense that, you know, there there are studies that show that reading requires certain brain activity that when exercised on long enough time, can, you know, increase strength of neural activity. it allows you to basically use your brain to higher extent. And think that in and of itself is reason to carve out time every so often to read. also think reading so important because all the podcasts that you listen to, all the YouTubers, all of the creators that you see online that you consume all the time like myself, pretty much any modern book that you'll read is just repurposed information from the past. Like anything that I'm telling you guys in lot of my videos, specifically my short form content, is something that's already been said by somebody much more intelligent than me thousands of years ago. view books as like the YouTube of history, right? And what's so cool about it is authors are very, very intentional. Right? Even book like one of the first novels ever, Don Quixote, you know, it's very long, but the author was very, very intentional with what he's doing. It's not like on my videos just talk in one take. That's it. So could have definitely said something that regret or that that isn't the best way of articulating or expressing what it is that I'm trying to say. With books, that's not the case. And especially books that had to go through an editing process. mean, there were multiple people that looked at these books. The author read over his own work multiple times to make sure that everything was perfect. It's very intentional. And there's sort of art, there's sort of beauty to that. think that books are fruitful to the soul, really. It exposes you to so many different ideologies, so many different beliefs, so many different perspectives on life. Some books are really fun. They're just enjoyment reads. Some books are extremely difficult and they're challenging and they they allow you to basically force yourself to exert lot of mental effort. And although some you don't want to do that all the time, you definitely want to do that sometime. think that you should have range of the type of books you read. You should be very diversified. You should read classics such as, you know, Lord Lord of the Flies. You should also read books that are just really fun. Like, let me see here. believe one in five books that you read should just be purely fun. The Lies of Locke Lamora. This book is about an orphan that becomes like thief and he gets into lot of trouble and there's lot of witty banter in this book. It's fantastic. these are books that some of these books like Lord of the Flies, don't know if had to read this for school or not, but remember reading it when was in eighth grade for the first time. Not very difficult book to to read at all. but it's classic and think everyone should read classics. But you just kind of start to diversify and and try reading new things in different periods of history and all this stuff. And all of sudden, you sort of start to subconsciously shape what it is that this world has been created by. You understand things. Characters can represent human emotions and can articulate or guess illustrate humanize certain ideas better than book like Atomic Habits could. Do you know what mean? And so, yeah, definitely recommend to read fiction, non-fiction, everything. like to just pick up books all the time. book that I'm just starting to read now, it's called Lonesome Dove. Like I've heard nothing but great stuff about this book. I'm not that far into it. I'm only like 14 chapters into it, but once again, it's it's just it's great dialogue, which is my favorite when read. But you should want to read very diversified set of material. mean, this right here is is western. literally hate westerns. Like never read them at all. This so far I'm loving it. I'm actually kind of surprised by that. You should read philosophy books. You know, I'm reading introduction to metaphysics. like to study metaphysics. and had to finally buy my own personal copy. got this this week of Plato's The Republic. It's like you just want to challenge yourself in your own thoughts. You will become so much more interesting at parties if you just read for 30 minutes day and then like 10 years down the line, you're just going to have multitude of random things that you know and that you can make sense of. You can articulate your thoughts better. It's so important, especially in society that is, you know, more or less obsessed with short form content, with lot of slap, with stuff that's easy to consume. It's fun to challenge yourself with really good book. And it's also fun when you can get in communities where other people also read. It's weird It's weird sense of belonging that you'll find. For example, I've I've seen so many videos on this book, The Master and Margarita, which have not read yet, but had to order copy cuz I've seen lot of YouTubers recommend this. And it's just like I'm just like so excited to read this and feel like I'm kind of entering sort of community with doing so that it's it's hard to find, you know. I'm guy and I'm into how would describe it? You know, I'm I'm into philosophy and stuff like that, but all of my friends, they're more like not frat boys, that's not the right word, but they're more just like outgoing guys that like to go out and have fun. And you know, don't live by my friends anymore, unfortunately. We me and my three closest friends, we actually all moved and all are living in different states now. However, like they're not into books at all. So it's very hard to get them into like you'll never catch them reading book about If you are interested in something, bet you there's book that's on it. You know, bet you that there's an author that is much smarter than you or that goes really in-depth into certain topic that you're interested in. And that's the that's the beautiful thing of life. think you should read all different genres. But yeah, if you basic rule of thumb to anybody that wants to get into reading, number one, don't overwhelm yourself. Don't like order bunch of books. these all these books here are books that I've ordered in the last month. some of them I've already read and just wanted my own copy, but they're all books that got in the last month, but my book collection is lot bigger than this. and sometimes look at it and I'll get intimidated because there's so many books that haven't read that own. But number one, don't overwhelm yourself. Get basic book. Doesn't need to be too long, doesn't need to be too short. So whatever you want. And go into it with first just just trying to develop habit, right? Develop habit. There's another thing. Life is too short to read bad book, okay? Do not do not read bad books. think it's it's it's tragedy because reading bad book is time that could be spent reading good book and trust me, your life is not long enough to read every good book that's out there. So basic rule of thumb is give it 100 pages minus your age. The older you get, the less time you have to read bad book, you know what mean? So if you're 20 years old, you should only be reading giving it 80 pages book. And if it doesn't strike your curiosity, if you're not interested in it, let it go, okay? Sometimes, you know, there are books that are notorious for being slow at the beginning. Maybe research that if it's if it's classic, if you really think it's going to be worth it, but other than that, yeah, get rid of it. Another thing that love to do, reread an old book that you really like if you're in rut because that will kind of like bring you back to enjoying the process of reading because there are certainly times even somebody like me who really enjoys books like it's just like feel like have to drag myself. It's like it's like task. feel like I'm working to complete this book and that you never want to be there. Reading should just be for fun. it even even the the acquiring of knowledge, it should be fun thing. Like you should enjoy it. You shouldn't feel like you're doing chore all the time. So you know, will be making video shortly. Hopefully soon here about my book recommendations. And in the meantime, bro, there are so many really really good influencers online that are significantly more well-read than am that will give you much more in-depth analysis of various different books that they might recommend. recommend doing that. friend of mine, his name's Chris Feiser. he he's fantastic. love anything that he makes. love consuming all the content that he makes that's surrounded by books. And all in all, you need to start challenging yourself in life and think if you just carve out chunk of time every day or maybe not every day, maybe every other day, maybe couple times week just give yourself reason to want to acquire more knowledge and think it will take you very far. So thank you guys for watching.