“Anyone who says they have only one life to live must not know how to read a book.”

- Author Unknown

We live in a very visual world. A lot of our perspectives these days are seen through our phones, computers, and televisions. It seems that most of our days are spent looking at a screen. And it truly is a wonderful thing. Through this we get to experience people and places we have never seen. We can marvel at a world we would not have known about otherwise. But what it takes away is our ability to imagine. When you pick up a book, there is whole world at your fingertips and it is your job to visually create that world. The characters in it are yours to picture, the buildings, forests, palaces, all yours to imagine. The thing about books is that they are stories seen from your perspective. With movies, we get a story seen from a director or producer’s perspective. It is so important that we practice this ability we have to read, because when we are do, we are exercising our creative minds in more ways than any television show can.

Read a book because you can.

Seriously, when did we forget that language, reading and writing are something the human race has developed and worked on for centuries. We take advantage of our education because we never knew what is was like to not be able to read. Right now there are thousands of people who would not be able to read this article right now because they didn’t have the same opportunities you did. So, take a second to imagine a world where there was no written communication, and then pick up a book.

Read a book because everyone is interested in something.

We all have something we are interested in. It can be really simple and general like hot air balloons or dogs. Or it could be something really complex and specific like the lifespan of an ant or research on all the elements of the sun. Whatever it is, there is most definitely a book about it.

Read a book because it is a challenge.

Yes, for a lot of people, including myself, it is much easier to just watch the movie. But where is the reward for sitting down for two hours staring at a screen. A book takes time and attentiveness. It is a challenge to stick with a story, but when you finish a book it is like saying goodbye to an old friend. There is a greater reward when you fulfill the challenge of reading a book.

Read a book because you deserve it.

Everyone in the world deserves to be able to delve into a world that is not there own. A book is an escape. It takes you out of your busy life and plunges you into the lives of other people. A book can make you forget. It can make you forgive. It can make you laugh or cry. A book is a gift that we all deserve to give ourselves.