Wednesday Musings on ILLUMINATION - 3 Simple Reasons Why Reading Enhances Our Quality of Life.

Reading has been instrumental to my learning.

It opens my mind and exposes me to broaden horizons.

I cannot imagine a life without reading.

Can you?

Reading has been drilled into me since I was much younger and I have never doubted that it has broadened my horizons. I has also built in perspectives that I have never thought possible. These are acquired knowledge that withstood the test of time in which I could pile on top of my existing understanding of the World.

This applies to the personal and professional aspect of my life

It can be very simple if we have one acknowledge one fact in life and that is: -

“We will never be able to be in-encompassing, know-it-all.”

That is it, really.

In fact, we can do a simple reflection here. Most of us learn one thing and do it good. The deliberate practice measured in 10,000 hours applies here. When we commit judiciously to do that one thing that well and strive for excellence, we will understand the mechanics surrounding that field. Using a software developer as an example, deliberate practice in terms of working knowledge acquired and applied could be writing lines of codes and then logically expanded into technical interface programs, operating systems development, Application Programming Interface (API) and much more.

When we first start out, we only do one tenet of that field of specialisation.

That could be writing lines of code. Then we expand our pool of knowledge into the other areas that are directly interconnected to what we do day to day.

That is one reason we have to read and research. We grow our specialisation and enhance our skill-sets.

At the same time, we need to see that the World is much bigger than our specialisation.

In fact, focusing on our specialisation is not the only approach to life. There are other fields of specialisation that speaks to our hearts and minds too.

That brings me to the second point. Building on our life interests.

While I am a business consultant, I love reading books pertaining to investments and finance. Money fascinates me. In fact, while everyone is caught up with the hype of cryptocurrencies and the global stock market hype, I took time to understand the fundamentals of investment and how I can best deploy my financial ammunition. Some principles are simple; such as creation of excessive money supply creates inflation down the line and companies can grow faster when borrowings can be put to productive use. Others such as alphas (performance that is better than market average) and betas (the inherent risk to be absorbed as part of investment in a particular vehicle) isn’t that easy to grasp.

That said, the drive to financial freedom allows me to gobble up books written by Ray Dalio, Warren Buffett, Napoleon Hill with ease.

Interest is indeed our best teacher.

And the most important lesson is the omnipresence of Life Coaches from diverse fields in life.

Every author is fit to write about that topic in his / her own right.

Some of time are able to present their synthesized thoughts coherently as a matter of combining what they have learnt with their life experience. I believe that Albert Einstein took more than 10 years to incorporate acceleration into his General Theory of Relativity which now governs the way we study, observe and test gravitational waves arising from collision of 2 neutron stars, calibration of the Global Positioning System, the Age of the Stars, the Age of the Universe and etc.

Through reading his works or authors writing about him, we get to appreciate his work and perspective within one or multiple sitting. Imagine condensing 10 years of work and experience into days. That is the best coaching material that could ever be.

Every Thought Leader out there who has perfected their craft and put their life work into writing is a window of opportunity for us to tap onto their minds and allowing us to understand why they did what they did and how amazing life could be as a continuous experiment and craft perfection.

When every author out there is able to present to us how they succeeded in their own unique ways, we get to benefit just by reading their work.

And that should show us one thing.

That when everyone can succeed in their own way, then we can.

Where did I learn all of these?

From reading a ton of books.

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About the Author:

As a Consultant by training, I believe in making the complex simple.

Because simplicity adds value.

Simplicity helps us gain clarity, and clarity helps us to grow.

And if we are not growing, then what’s the point of anything else?

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