How to make the most of your habit of reading?
I have been finishing a book every other week. And you know what, once you are reading enough you start wondering whether all your reading is even worth it.
Does reading so many books even help? Do you actually remember what you have read? When do you end up using all the knowledge you think you have gained? How to make sure you do not forget all the great quotes and life lessons? Should you take notes? If yes, how does that help in recollecting the right advice when you genuinely need it? Gosh, before you even realize it, your innocuous refreshing hobby has become a tedious chore. Ignorance, indeed, is bliss.
So what’s the solution? How can we make the best of a book?
After trying a bunch of things from taking notes to making mind-maps, I have come to believe that you will make maximum gains by just letting the book sink. Read a book as you would love to read it, without fretting over memorizing the details.
Enjoy the book and, probably, it will help.
What? Wait! That’s where we started.
Exactly. There is no point in memorizing a book because a great book will fundamentally alter the composition of your thoughts. They will very subtly leave a mark on your processing and help you in a latent manner.
Reading a great book will stimulate the right set of neurons in your brain. The journey that you take with these books will inherently shape your character and mold your thought process. You may not remember the plot or be able to quote a character from the book but, rest assured, the ideas in a good book are absorbed at some deeper level. They become a part of your consciousness.
Here are some examples of how some of my favorite books influence me from time to time. Whenever I wish to quit while running, I am reminded of Murakami and a sentence from his memoir on running — “Pain is inevitable, but suffering is optional.” I am always end up remembering a story on black pearls from Dan Ariely’s Predictably Irrational while discussing pricing problems with my colleagues.
(Fret not, the links to the mentioned books are the bottom)
I know that I am better off reading the books I have read. It is just hard to explain how. So, I keep my faith and carry on viewing my habit of reading as a way to experience worlds other than mine. Letting my thoughts clash and converge with the ideas and experiences of others is my way growing through reading. And that’s how you can make the most out of you reading habit.
P.S. — This may not always be applicable for academic reading.
Books Mentioned
- Predictably Irrational, The Hidden Forces That Shape Our Decisions — by Dan Ariely
- What I Talk About When I Talk About Running — by Haruki Murakami
