I was a Pizza Hut BOOK IT! kid. I probably read more books every year as a kid than I did as an adult until about a year ago (except now I can have a pizza party whenever I want and take care of a Medium pizza all by myself)!
And it wasn’t until about a year ago that I realized how to truly read a book: however I wanted.
Somehow, I had a very completist mindset when it came to books. I felt like I needed to read every word, cover to cover, so that I could claim to have read the book.
In a time that we are swimming in information, and books are some of the cheapest, most value-rich investments we can make, I realized that I don’t have to finish every book I start.
I’m not going to get audited or questioned for putting a book down when I didn’t want to read it any more. I don’t have to even start at the beginning!
Some books give a ton of great insight simply from reading the table of contents! How liberating is that?
It turns out there is no right way to read a book – as long as you glean something from it. It sounds crazy, but it wasn’t until I released that narrative of what “reading a book” meant that I got back into reading in full force.
And now I look at every narrative I tell myself: does this need to be there? What if there was another way to do this?