Reading

How did we as a nation develop the concept that schooling ends with school? Yet, for most people that is how learning through books is viewed. 

I did some research into adult reading and like all statistics numbers can reflect positively or negatively for whichever point you’re attempting to make. I’ll argue most adults, following their High School or College education, do not crack a book again for the sole intent of “learning.” Multiple studies show we are at our lowest casual reading levels in decades and that trend is continuing.

You are either growing or decaying - right? How often I write on this. Unless required for work, many of us would rather not have to read to learn again. I definitely fell into that category until about 20 years ago when I was introduced to the world of self-help books. And what did I learn? Just how much wisdom and knowledge available to all of us I didn’t know existed! These books changed my life. 

Self-Improvement books, leadership books and worthy biographies are filled with wisdom, years of travelled experience, captured forever in the written word. An ongoing conversation for the reader to learn the shortcuts to success or simply a more fulfilling and happier life, written by an author who poured his or her learned knowledge and wisdom into their book for us forever - if we choose to read them. 

Without such reading you are left with only one other choice - figure it out on your own. And how much sadness do we see in the world today? It’s everywhere. We often feel we know best until we find ourselves learning yet another hard lesson in life. 

It is impossible to learn everything in one’s lifetime by experience alone. Reading classics such as “As A Man Thinketh,” “How to Win Friends and Influence People,” “Think and Grow Rich,” “The Power of Positive Thinking,” “The Laws of Success,” are a few quick examples of gaining such insights, allowing you greater access to a happier life with the least hardships along the way.

I believe you’ll find most successful entrepreneurs have read each of these or at least employ their concepts. They don’t look towards others to fix their problems. They create a way where there is no way and learn success principles allowing them to create the life they dream of. 

That’s what books of this nature do - they provide a broader horizon in which to tackle our daily lives. With so much suffering going on in today’s world, how different would life be experienced if everyone was filled with such wisdom? 

Here’s a truth I believe fully - an uneducated America will be a rewritten America. I wrote that in response to some of the ignorant statements thrown around last week in regards to our Nation’s Independence Day. Never before in the history of mankind is reading so available to the masses - yet what is the quality of what is being read? You don’t have to look far to find the answer to that.