Reading has always been a struggle for me.
And by struggle I mean I avoided it at all costs while growing up and until…well…still.
Once I really get into a book I can sometimes get engaged but it takes a lot of work to get there and it doesn’t even always happen.
However, I’ve been widely exposed to the wisdom of others who talk about the many benefits of reading and I myself have seen the deep impact that it can have on others.
I’ve tried to get into it. Forcing myself to read 10 pages, 20 pages, a chapter every day for a month. But try as I might, I always struggle to stay motivated to do it. This will be the 178th day in a row that I’ve written a blog post and I guarantee that is twice as long as the longest streak I’ve gone reading every day.
I recognize the advantages of reading but I just don’t get out of it what many others do.
I’ve come to two conclusions
First, I’m going to have to fight this the rest of my life. I know that reading is one of the most valuable things you can do, no matter who you are, so I’m not just going to give up on reading.
Second, though, I’ve realized that reading is not how I learn best. If I take a book and listen to it on audio, I can get through it twice as fast while doing twice as much, enjoying it, and getting a ton from it.
I am so much more of an auditory learner. Just by turning written words into spoken words I am 20x more engaged and interested.
When I was younger, I attributed my lack of a desire for reading to the fact that I would rather be out climbing a tree rather than reading a book about someone else doing it.
For that reason, fiction books hold almost zero interest in my mind. They seem like a big waste of time (which by the way, before anyone attacks me, I know they’re not always a waste of time and there are some fiction books that have changed people’s lives the same or more than non-fiction books. I’m not saying there’s no place for them and that they can’t be done extremely well, I’m just saying that for myself, it’s very difficult to get into fiction books [I will now take the award for the longest parenthetical statement, please.]).
The books I’m most interested in are books of history. Learning real stories from real people who have gone before me.
There is one book that I believe is different from all other books. That book is, of course, the Bible. I believe it has the words of life. If God believes that a book was the best way to communicate his words and the story of his people, that’s probably a good sign that it’s a pretty good way to communicate.
It’s also a form of story-telling and communicating that I believe will never go away. I don’t believe we will ever live in a world without books. Even if the only reason being that God’s word will never cease to exist and if that’s true, and it’s a book, then we can never live in a world without books.
…I digress.
The point of this post isn’t to dis reading. In fact, to the people who are into books and love to read them, kudos to you. I often wish I was more like you. Unfortunately, I have to come to the realization that books aren’t how I learn best, and that’s okay.
It didn’t used to feel okay, but it really is. Everyone learns and enjoys things differently. It doesn’t mean I’ll never read again, but I won’t feel ashamed when I tell someone I listened to a book on audio instead of reading it.