I used to hate reading. I never thought it was cool. There was nothing special to it. None of my friends read. I didn’t want to be the weird kid in school who was a bookworm. Being a nerd was never cool.
This was my middle schooler thought process on the subject of reading and it only persisted as I grew older. I moved to Mexico, then returned to California still thinking the same way. But I got to a point in life where I noticed that nothing will ever be the same again, no one is here to help me, and that I am completely alone. What do I do to get where I need to be? What do I do to survive? What do I do about my situation? I can either complain about my life or I can do something about it. And when I was 16 years old I decided to figure out my life and being successful.
I also realized that I had many problems within myself from my childhood and past experiences. I wanted to find a way out but as I later learned, there is only one way. The obstacle is the way and only by going through this painful and paralyzing unfortunate event will I be able to find the answers I am seeking.
I picked up my first book, then my second, and now I have a small library of books. It’s one thing to learn, and it’s another thing to choose what to do with what we learn. I’m actually really proud of myself for coming this far. They (whoever they is) can take my car, the roof over my head, the clothes on my back, I DON’T CARE. One thing that “they” can never take is what I know, and what I know is that I can get it all back. I know what got me to that place, I can do it again because I know how.
Books saved my life. These authors became my mentors. Just as their words provided the tools in ideas necessary to profoundly impact my life, I wish my words will also bring ideas to you to help you with whatever you are seeking to resolve.
Though I am not perfect, I still have many problems in my life that I’m working on. I look forward to whatever is next. Life is just a series of challenges and I want to show up as the best version of myself. So I choose to be a lifelong student. People will not understand this about me, and I don’t want you all to understand me. Just know that no matter how bad things get, I will never break because I know how hard I work on improving myself to become the best version on myself.
No one will ever know how hard I work and I don’t want them to know. I know that I’ll be successful because no one is outworking me. And if you are, if you exist out there, ill make sure I know about you and I’ll up my game.
Just like middle school, people still think reading isn’t cool yet, I hear them complain about how their life isn’t going how they want it to and then go back to old habits.
Doing the same thing and expecting a different result is the definition of insanity.
That’s why we can’t get ahead. At least this was my experience. Some aren’t aware of this fact and forever live in a loop repeating the same day like in Groundhog Day. Some are aware of this and yet choose to do nothing about it because they are comfortable. I don’t blame them, I’d also like to lay around and play video games all day but that will not get me anywhere.
We have to become comfortable with the uncomfortable in order to move on. This, we don’t get to do by just reading a book or by playing video games. But since you’re learning through the experiences of others, you can use their thought process to give you an idea of how you can get out of your own struggles. Video games will only distract you from your problems, not help you develop solutions.
And this goes with everything we use as distractions, it doesn’t just have to be video games. Sometimes it’s social media, or eating, maybe you have the habit of smoking when things get tough. Whatever it is, it’s the justification for why we aren’t doing what we should.
“Until my life is structured like this, and until that person changes this about them, will I be able to start with what I want to do.” This is the wrong way to look at things. Why not say to yourself, “Because things are this way, and because people treat me in that way, I’m going to do all that I must do in order to overcome this adversity.”
To get a different result, we have to do things differently. As you go on this journey of improving yourself, you’ll realize that only you can change your situation. And doing this is not easy. It’s simple but not easy. Don’t expect to find answers in someone else when you continue to do the same thing over and over again. You now know how hard it is to improve yourself, what makes you think you can “improve” someone else. It’ll never work. The problem is never the person next to you. The problem is the person staring back at you in the mirror.
Writers have a way to put things in different perspectives and I like that about books. For every problem I have had in my life, best believe I found solutions in the pages of a book.
Nowadays I don’t care if people think I’m a nerd or weird for liking books. There are people out there who know the value of reading. “The person who knows how to read will never beat the person who can’t read and wants to learn.” However this saying goes, it’s true.
Throughout history, information has been very valuable. Why do you think college is so expensive? But have you put value on your own knowledge? What you know, money can’t buy because you experienced it. Why not experience more out of life when you know more about what life has to offer?
One thing that I think makes books really cool is that in just a couple hundred pages you will get an insight of how that person thinks. Decades of experience in a few hours spent reading their work. It just blows my mind, especially now with the internet. This is the information age, we are bombarded with information everyday. We have access to the biggest library in the world. All it costs us is our phone bill and time out of our day.
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