The Joy of Reading

 When you experience life through the eyes of another, you encounter diverse viewpoints on life’s most common situations. Talented authors will naturally inspire empathy for their characters, and while empathizing with perspectives different from your own can feel uncomfortable, reading offers you the opportunity to understand those viewpoints better.

We all have a uniquely valuable role in life. But many of us, even if satisfied with that role, often wonder what it would be like to live in a different place, work at a different job, or even be a completely different person. For temporary moments of time, books release us from the constraints of our own reality. They take us beyond our world and into someone else’s, whether real or imaginary. They satisfy the curiosity of the elusive “What if?”.

Reading is a revolutionary act of engagement in a culture that encourages us to disengage. Reading gives us a portal into the minds and spaces of others, as well as into ourselves.

Reading dares us to grow, challenges our perspective, and emboldens our lives. It requires us to reimagine the world that we thought we knew in order to create a reimagined version where our thoughts and dreams are allowed to roam free. It’s also a sacred space where our innermost self can take flight in any direction imaginable — from the depths of ancient Mesopotamia to the roaring 20’s or Dystopian futures, reading is a highly underutilized tool during this age of anxiety.