I know a lot of people who are not big on reading, and they get really amazed about the fact that I can spend hours lying down with a book and, according to them, do nothing else. They ask me: how do you do it, don’t you get bored? Most of these people want to make it a habit too but do not know how to get started. Or if they have just started doing it, they want to know how to keep going.
Before we get into the how-to part of starting the reading habit, let’s touch upon why most people can’t continue with it after reading a few pages of a book or, if after a great effort they are able to finish a book, why they cannot start another one?
The most common pattern I have seen among non-readers is that they ask people what they should read, without realising that just as tastes differ on clothes, movies, art and so on, people have different tastes in reading. If I like a book it is not necessary that even you should like it. You pick up the suggested book, but after some pages your interest fades because you are simply not interested in the genre or the plot, or simply do not like the author’s style of writing.
How can you be expected to like what has interested someone else? You simply cannot expect yourself to like a best-seller just because it’s a best-seller. It’s perfectly fine, and it’s not a reflection on your reading taste. Reading patterns can also be very different among best of friends.
Now let’s see how we can develop this habit. There are two ways to go about this. Start small, you don’t have to finish War and Peace in the first couple of months. Start with authors whose writing style you connect with or books whose language is easily comprehensible to you.
Secondly, we all have areas of interest. Some of us like sports, politics, cooking, music or anything else under the sky. Start with a book that talks about your interests, if you like a particular sport, pick out a biography of your favourite sportsperson.
Whatever you may be interested in, I can assure you there is a book written on it.
aftab.ahmed14@ gmail.com
