This week on 2 March, we celebrated World Book Day. The day reminds us that books are not just objects to sit passively on a shelf, but are gateways to other worlds, other lives, and limitless possibilities.
Of course, not everyone enjoys or has a positive relationship with reading. Some find it “boring.” Some link it to school and never beyond that. Some “don’t have time.” Some find the physical act of reading a real challenge.
Wherever you are in your relationship with reading, consider what reading can offer to your mind if you stay open to its opportunities. Reading increases empathy; it enables you to see the world from another viewpoint and climb into the stories of others… and if the world needs anything, it needs more of that. Reading can help us to understand ourselves in relation to others, where we stand in the world and what we value. Reading gives us a unique opportunity to take the arrangement of just the 26 letters of the alphabet, and through them be transported to anywhere as anyone, through the power of imagination.
Reading can help us to feel less alone.
Reading can open us to challenging ideas, opinions and attitudes that we never knew existed.
Reading can help us to make connections.
Reading helps us to be still and focused.
If reading isn’t for you, please keep looking; the right book may be trying to find you and once the power of reading is unlocked, the possibilities are endless.
