"The Power of Reading" - By Joe Mabor Agany, ICT, Foundation 3rd

“In books I have traveled, not only to other worlds but into my own. I learned who I was and who I wanted to be, what I might aspire to, and what I might dare to dream about my world and myself”

Anna Quindlen  

What attitude do you have towards reading? Do you want to be successful in university or in your life in general? Although a few people get pleasure from reading, many take it as a burden and never dare to read at their will. But do these people know what reading can do for them? They may know that reading can make one successful and wise but they ignore it due to bad attitude towards reading developed at early age.  Many of us hate reading in schools’ probably because we struggle to memorise what our teacher give us in order to pass exams but not to gain knowledge for our own good. The continued improvement of quality of human life is done through learning and reading is learning. Without learning there is no progress in our life. It is therefore important to understand the power of reading in our life process.

Reading enhances our academic performances in school. Students who like reading usually perform much better than those who see it as a burden. Ask any A student what makes him or her an A student and he or she will most likely tell you one answer which is common among his or her group; he or she reads a lot. Although there are many factors for success in school, one cannot be lazy to read and expect to perform well. Many students who perform poorly in schools are made to believe that they are dumb and that those who perform highly are born genius. In my former high school, a classmate came to me after our exams results and emotionally told me that I was so fortunate have been given a better brain. I told her that we have the same brain and that if she had put in more effort to study before the exams she would have performed better. There are many stories of students who once performed poor in school later turned things around and became top performing students in their classes. The living example is the retired renowned US Pediatric Neurosurgeon, Republican Dr. Ben Carson. Dr. Ben was at the last rank of fifth grade class and his classmates called him dummy but after his mother required him with his brother to read two books a week, he was top of his class within a year (Think Big, Dr. Ben Carson). Ben, the dummy of his class later made history in 1987 by separating Siamese twins joined at the back of the head. He says in his book, Think Big, that books are the mechanism for obtaining knowledge, as opposed to television. If there is one thing you can do to improve your academic performance, get your nose into the books.

More importantly, reading can change one’s bad psychology. Some people grow with a poor mindset that can hinder success in all aspects of their life such as their profession, relationships, business or health. There are many psychology books that can help one to change his mental outlook which were written by great achievers who once experienced the same attitude towards life. Jim Rohn confessed in his Best Ever Training that he was always complaining and blaming everything bad that happen in his life on other factors such as government, economy, and the community. After changing his psychology through books, he became a billionaire. He believed that self-education is very necessary in order to succeed as he said it in one of his famous quotes: “Formal education will make you a living; self-education will make you a fortune”.  Personally, I was a terrible negative thinker who would stay up in bed all night thinking about how miserably I may fail in everything I was to do. This negativity really affected me badly in many aspects of my life but through books I now look at how I can succeed in my undertakings and imagine success instead of failure. I have read quite many books which have enabled me to look at things in different perspective. If you are kind of person that only think of the worst things that may happen to you, I recommend you to read one of my favorite books in this genre, “The power of positive thinking” by Norman Vincent Peale.

Lastly, another important dividend of reading is self-discovery. As I quote from Aldous Huxley “There is only one corner of the universe you can be certain of improving, and that’s your own self”, self-discovery is the most important step toward a successful and meaningful life journey. If you don’t know who you are and what you want, you will live in confusion which causes frustration and unhappiness. This happens because if you don’t know your personality, how you think and perceive things, you will always compare yourself with others and act like them which will automatically cause frustrations as you won’t never be like them because you are a different person. Anna Quindlen put it in her quote: “In books I have traveled, not only to other worlds but into my own. I learned who I was and who I wanted to be, what I might aspire to, and what I might dare to dream about my world and myself”. So in books you travel deep into yourself and discover your strengths and weaknesses which are usually surpassed by our ego. Knowing your strengths and weakness enable you to use and exploit your inner strengths fully and minimise on your weaknesses.

In conclusion, we should develop a good attitude toward reading not in during school era but also throughout our life. There are many important of reading but a few of them are enhancing academic performance, changing bad psychology and self-discovery. The common character among high performing students is that they enjoy reading. Our psychology is affected by where we grew up and as such we may develop a negative mindset that will hinder our progress in life but through reading and learning we change and develop a different new good mindset. More importantly, we should discover our strengths and weakness in order to know where to improve or minimise.  I believe that each of us can tap into his or her ability to read and get the pleasure of continuous learning which also make him/her a valuable asset to the society.