Read Widely

My love of reading started when I was very young. My mother would read books to us. Ever since then I have read. Much of my reading, perhaps all of it lol, through my teen and early twenties was for pleasure. Like many guys, I was into fantasy and science fiction.

Once my career started and our family started I branched out and began to read more widely. The “Self Help” genre captivated me as I tried to understand what happened to me in my childhood, and looked for tools to help me deal with my life. This led me into Tao and Zen Buddhism which I view not as religions but more as a way to govern your life. More recently I have expanded my reading to histories and biographies and narrative non fiction.

When my dad died in 2013 I got much of his library. One of the first books I read was “Plutarch’s Lives”. Plutarch was a Greek who wrote a biography of a famous Greek, and a famous Roman, and then compared the two. The book is over 500 pages of small print double column. It remains one of my more valuable reads.

Reading widely gives you context for your life and the world wow live in. It allows you to look at the current political environment in the world and our country today and understand this has happened before in the past. We remember reading how it worked out before and can see the same type of thing happen again. The most dangerous thing, in my opinion, is to take action, voting, without this context. Without this context we are much more likely to be swayed by the sophists who are best at putting together a thirty second sound bite to convince us to hate the bad guys and vote for them.

Reading widely helps you understand your own life. We are not unique. The problems we experience have been experienced by others. Someone has already lived through what you are going through now, and they have written a book about it. You don’t have to struggle to find out the truth. You can read their book and stand on their shoulders and move forward.

I would suggest setting aside a time to read every day. Twenty minutes before you go to bed will do, though you can devote much more time if you choose and do so when it fits. I would also therefore suggest always having a book to read with you.

I feel this is one of the most important things a person can do. If you are not reading regularly I think you are functionally illiterate.