How I Came to Love Reading
Reading is not always the most glamorous activity, especially with so many other things to watch and play, but in my experience, it can certainly be the most rewarding. To read is to fill your mind with imagination, creativity, and knowledge.To read is to both escape from the world and gain insight into it. Yet, with that reward comes a resistance common in many people of all ages. Many shy away from books because they developed a strong distaste for them as a child, due to school, their parents, their own disinterest, or a combination of the three. But I am here to tell you that you do not have to embrace reading as a child in order to love it later in life. Reading is not something we just love or hate in black in white, because reading is not a binary thing. There are hundreds of forms and styles and genres of books, and even many avid readers have mixed feelings about books in general, preferring fiction over nonfiction or short articles over novels. Everyone has a preference, but sometimes one bad experience can result in people missing out on all the beautiful moments reading has to offer.
I remember walking into school on the first day of first grade and being excited to read the books they would later assign us; my mother had always taken me to the library to find interesting books for me to read, and I wanted to transfer the joy I got from those trips to school. The way stories made me feel, and the ability to choose what to read for myself, resulted in an eagerness to read more. But upon getting my first few books that school year, I found that most school-assigned novels or passages were just—boring. They had no sea voyagers with their dragon friends, no princesses in far away lands, no children living in peaches. I found that so many of the stories we had to read were purely for educational purposes and to expose us to all the different genres of books. This, I found absurd and unnecessary. Little did I know that this experimentation with things I hadn’t seen before would help me figure out what I did and didn’t like to read, something that has changed a lot throughout my life.
It wasn’t until middle school that I actually began to enjoy reading in my free time again. Though I had always been the kid who did their homework without grief and understood reading and writing very well, it wasn’t a particular interest of mine until I moved schools going into sixth grade. Entering a school without knowing anyone and leaving all your friends behind can be isolating and lonely. Of course I made friends within the first few weeks of being at my new school, but it was books that helped fend off the loneliness. Stories like Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone and The Maze Runner helped me escape to another world and become a heroic character with heroic duties. The fantasies of these worlds were more intriguing than my own, and the moral lessons they taught me about life and friendship gave me the courage to face my own reality, despite its lack of zombies or magic. Reading got me through the hard days, when all I could think about was going home and finishing chapter six of my current obsession.
Sometimes, all a book needs to provide is something to look forward to. Sometimes it’s a sense of understanding; that the author, that someone else in the world, really gets what you’re feeling. Sometimes it’s to quench a pure thirst for knowledge of niche topics that provide a feeling of fulfillment. Regardless of the genre you favor or have yet to discover, there are so many possibilities to discover through reading. There are too many books to count and endless potential for new ones every day. Books are not something to bore you or to place on a shelf to make you seem smart. They are transformative and allow for so many opportunities of self discovery.
All that is needed is to give each its own chance to pleasantly surprise you, and I say that as someone who has grown into an avid reader after a childhood of resistance. Keep pursuing books, because when you find the right ones, you will never forget what they allowed you to think, what they allowed you to feel, and all the doors they helped you open.
