At the beginning of the year I challenged myself to reading an entire book per week for this year. Little did I expect that this task would make such an impact on my life.

Although now I’ve opted for reading almost exclusively on Medium, I can’t deny the fact that I’ve read almost 20 books so far this year. That’s impressive considering the average person reads 4 books per year.

But even Jimmy Kimmel is pretty doubtful of that. Especially after he sent his team to interview the public. He asked a simple question:

Can you name a book? Any book?

Here’s how that went.

It’s a bit funny to see people struggle with a question so simple. However it also shows how little people actually spend time reading books.

In fact I see it as a bit sad.

Because books are fucking awesome.

I praised it yesterday as a non-traditional method to destress, but there is more to reading than simply that.

Books Prompt Us To Be Creative

Books can prompt us to be creative individuals.

Now what has that to do with patience?

Well, a lot of things actually.

Think of it this way:

Creative thinking is the right way of cutting corners. Meaning when we think creatively we are both efficient but also don’t hamper the quality of our work.

This is important since if people want to be efficient, people will traditional skip steps or half-complete steps. They call it “efficiency” but it’s only creating more work later on.

Books can provide fuel for creative thinkers or to think creatively because the author brings something you didn’t expect. This is the case for both non-fiction and fiction books.

Though with fiction, you may have to do a bit more digging.

The thing is with creative thinking, you do have to spend a bit of time thinking of the best solution.

• If you are impatient, you’ll opt for the seemingly fastest method with little consideration.
• Creative thinking spends a bit more time preparing and little time with the work. You need a bit of patience for that.

Books Teach Us About Ourselves

Through new perspectives things can click with us. When it comes to non-fiction novels we can click with some of the words people are saying.

It’s through that that we realize things about ourselves or new approaches to things we otherwise wouldn’t have thought of.

Even with fiction we connect with various characters for a variety of reasons.

It’s through these particular connections that we can learn about ourselves in ways we never thought of.

Why do you connect with the main character of that story?

What about this information made you realize you were doing something wrong?

Words and actions from characters move us and it’s through those feelings that we have a deeper understanding of ourselves.

It falls back onto the concept of why we buy things.

We buy things for the benefits, but mostly for the feels. It’s why commercials advertise on an emotional level than a logical level.

It’s through those feelings where we learn about ourselves.

Knowledge Is Power

Knowledge is power as we deepen our understanding of ourselves. With deeper understanding comes an understanding of the world around us and a different perspective to the problems that we face.

As I’ve said before and so many others before me:

When we change our thinking of a problem, we change the problem itself.

Books can provide a passageway for that directly or indirectly. It’s for this particular reason we shouldn’t discount the power of books.

Furthermore, we shouldn’t discount reading in general. After all, articles can be just as powerful as books.

So pick up any book, even if you’ve read it before. Books are timeless, but people change and grow over time.

You never know what new insights await in even the oldest of books.

To your growth!

Eric S Burdon

This post is part of an 3 month writing challenge that I’m committing myself to. Every day for 3 months, I’ll be writing articles with specific criteria in mind. You can learn all about my reasoning as well as what that criteria is right here. This is 72 of 91 of this series.

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