“Wow, you read A LOT, don’t you?”

So I was being a good host to a friend that came visit The Disco during The Open House. We we’re talking about stuff and I told her a couple of lines I remember from this good book I read. Then out the fascination-slash-question above.

To my opinion she’s this intelligent, well-read, independent woman. And this lady is a writer. Like, she writes and stuff? 🙂 She would have no trouble in picking up a book and tear it apart.

Now on the other hand, me, I don’t read that much. Well, ‘a lot’ and ‘much’ is a vague value. Let’s say I read one good book every two months. That’s it. I know people that read like one book every week easily. And that would make me a far cry from ‘reading a lot’.

A story by Dave Trott came to mind:

Two explorers are walking through the jungle. Suddenly they hear a tiger roar. One explorer sits down and takes a pair of running shoes out of his backpack. ‘You’re crazy, you’ll never out-run a tiger,’ says the other explorer. ‘I don’t have to out-run the tiger,’ he replies. ‘I just have to out-run you.’

You WILL have an advantage in life if you read books. Things we don’t know, lessons people share, and the ways things work in the world. It’s a very good advantage. I am literally an example how developing good reading habit will change your life. ‘Developing’ because I wasn’t an avid reader at start. But I have learned to overcome the “IT’S ALL WORDS, WHERE THE HECK ARE THE PICTURES??!!” we all share. You can too, y’know? 🙂

I was an empty bucket (read: clueless) and now I’m filling the bucket up. Will do so for the rest of my life.

You don’t have to read a lot.

You just have to read more than most people.

(Which I am happy to tell you: most people don’t.)