Tuesday, December 3, 2013

How to Use Books to Inspire You?

By Jerin Jacob (Author of Your Epic Year)
I am confused, what to read...
Early in this journey of being alive, I was not at all interested in reading, even though I was aware about its virtues. I remember, sometime ago a friend of mine who was mentoring me about the necessity and greatness of reading. “Oh man! I don't have much time, I don't even get time to ...”, before I complete, he interrupted me and suggested to try reading just before bed-time. I tried. It worked. That was how an epic reader was born.

From that time of tasting my first book till now, I read and read when ever I could and where ever I am. Most of the time my reading comes under the category of “Reading for yourself”. You may wonder, by the way what is this “Reading for yourself” is all about?

Over the ages of my rigorous reading and watching others read, I have come to realize everyone who reads are not reading the same. Everyone has their own preferences on what to read. I have categorized the reading preferences into two – which are “Reading for yourself” and “Reading for entertainment”.

“Reading for yourself” is a kind of reading which helps to improve you as a being. When I said improvement, it can be spiritual, intellectual, physical or social. Any reading which makes you better than yesterday is “Reading for yourself”. On the surface level it looks selfish but the simple fact is that to help others become 'better', you need to become 'better' first.

On the other hand there are people who do “Reading for entertainment”. As the name itself conveys these people see reading as sheer means for fun. They use reading as an alternative for any entertainment medium like Television (they never admit though). This kind of reading involves novels or junk fiction stories or crime stories or erotic stories. I am not saying “Reading for entertainment” is bad. I would say “Reading for yourself” has greater advantages over the other one.

Latest development in neurobiology reveals that reading of a single sentence can alter your neurons in the brain significantly which in turn creates a new belief system in your mind. That means whatever you read has a greater impact in your life.

So choose to read self-help books or self-improvement books, also writings which gives you a new perspective towards life and people, like an autobiography of a great person or a non-fiction writing about your passion or even a fiction writing which inspires to follow your heart.

A simple comparison:


Reading for yourself:

Reading for entertainment:

1. Gives you new perspective towards life 1. Not necessarily, may be you can gulp the author's perspective
2. Helps to learn something new 2. Not every time, you are focusing on entertainment
3. Inspires for your dreams 3. Crime stories and such, may not inspire you unless you aspire to become a criminal
4. Messages will be direct hence time won't be lost roaming around in a story 4. You won't get direct answers; mostly you need to interpret or need to read the whole novel to get a simple answer you are seeking in life.
5. Probably it will help you to be successful,
in case you take actions on the lessons you
learn.
5. You will make the author and the publisher successful, never you.



Hope the concepts have served you. By the way do you know someone who really needs to read this? If so, go ahead and share this article with that person. Sharing is caring.

P.S. Still there are some months left in 2015 to make an epic year, download my new eBook - YOUR EPIC YEAR by clicking the orange  button below (You can read it from any smart-phone):
YOUR EPIC YEAR

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