By I had an epiphany the other day when I was talking to a friend about my struggles with reading books. I just couldn’t stay focused on the words (and no – it’s not because I need a stronger eyeglass prescription). What I realized is that I was attempting to read a book like the way I read emails.
My approach to emails is akin to triage. Skim quickly to determine if 1) do I need to take action? 2) is this an emergency/urgent issue 3) is the email for info only 4) is this spam, etc.. This strategy worked great when I received 100’s of emails each day and was trying to stay on top of my projects and keep my inbox clean.
Reading a book requires a deeper level of concentration. Reading book is about enjoying the journey – the development of characters; the creative use of language to visualize people and places; the driving of the plot; the author’s voice and message; perhaps some alliteration to playfully tickle your tongue.
Somehow I have to retrain my brain to slow down. Instead of reading and thinking “yada yada yada” or “blah blah blah, get to the good stuff”, I need to pause and savor what the author is conveying to me. And rather than focus on I read NN books this month/year, I need to change the measurement to I enjoyed/relished …one book? two books? Maybe it isn’t even about quantification. Because reading should be about pleasure and not measurable success.
And so this evening I believe I’ll start reading a little earlier and focus not so much on the completion of a book or even a chapter. I’ll read a paragraph or sentence a few times, not because I’ve lost track of where I was but because I want to dive deep into this word pool.
