Nowadays, there are so many outlets to learn. TV, school, going out and experiencing life, the internet... the list is pretty endless on ways to learn and pick up new information. Something that people often forget is to read. In today's society, reading is a skill that many take for granted, especially in our generation of high school and university ages, because they instill so much reading in class assignments that it becomes a chore instead of a pleasure.

I'm a daily writer and reader, and I think that the motivation to do both is a practice that everyone should instill within their daily routines. When you read, you become a better writer. When you write, you pull inspirations from your surrounding environment (unless it's a paper on Crime & Punishment for your English class) and you are learning how to be a better communicator in the world.

The skills of reading and writing are so important and are needed in almost any job field that you will go into. If you are a poor communicator, you may not get the job. And do you know how you can pick up skills and the knowledge to better your writing? From reading!

I challenge you- for just twenty minutes a day- set a timer, I promise you'll still be reading at the end of those twenty minutes- to pick up a book, a magazine, the newspaper (online news counts too), an Odyssey article... anything that is information that you can absorb and take notes on in your mind. From everything you read, if it is a good piece of writing, there is something that should stick with you.

I'm currently working as an intern for a publishing company, so I am reading a lot. Many of the books we publish are memoirs, and it's interesting to read other people's overcoming hardships and be inspired to learn from the lives that other people live. I also spend a lot of time editing friends' and colleagues' papers or creative writing, and it almost always inspires me to get some writing done afterwards.

The skills of communication are so important, and every day, so many people work on learning English and written communication skills to have the ability to be competitive in the working world. If you went to school in America, you are so lucky to know one of the toughest, but most interesting languages. Use the skills that you've learned. Read something to learn from someone else. Write something to inspire someone else. One of my favorite quotes is "Be the change you wish to see in the world." Knowledge is power, and by learning from others and contributing from your own pool of knowledge, you are changing the world, one sentence at a time.