Reading is nothing more than a meta skill

you don't read to be labeled an intellectual by society nor to boaster around with the title, you read to benefit yourself towards learning other skills

A lot of people mocked me in the past (and still) for reading a lot of books, little did they know that reading is nothing more than a meta skill for building discipline to do other things in life not just to boaster around that you are an intellectual.

Things like going to the gym, achieving a certain milestone at work, or starting your own company. Those require a huge amount of discipline to be able to sustain yourself in the on the long run bit if you have trained yourself that you are capable of achieving a difficult challenge then psychologically speaking, you are able to do other difficult tasks because you have done one in the past especially if you are capable of achieving this tough task multiple times throughout the years (in my case this is my 3rd year finishing 52 books a year and 3 years daily journaling)

Reading and writing are the most easily accessible things anyone can reach to also it requires the least amount of overhead when it comes to expenses. Easily manageable and easily divisible throughout time so this is why I would recommend starting off with it because you can literally start reading free books on Project Gutenberg on your phone for 5-10 minutes daily.

Everything we do in life are connected indirectly to each other and they do affect each other as well but we don’t usually connect the dots together to be able to see the links between those points. Take this example: reading makes you a better writer, this writing skill can be stretched on other events like you could write a well documented script for your podcast and it would become a hit or you could write a really good proposal that would land you a job/offer/sale or you can write a really good book that would lead to your upcoming fame! Out of just reading on a daily basis, your writing skills becomes better through time which can make you a better podcaster or a better sales representative or a better negotiator, all of that happened indirectly because you have decided to focus on the meta skill that makes all of these skills advance forward.

The problem with people boaster around that they read a lot is nothing more than ego boosting themselves in society. Sure that it is quite an amazing achievement but you are reading for yourselves not for others. I learned that when I was posting my reading progress on Reddit on /r/52books where I received numerous awards for reading 52 non fiction books that one guy messaged me that I deserve another award because I have decided to read all of books based on non fiction which is quite rare in the reading world, honestly I was just reading for myself. Some people that I know did get motivated when I posted my progress at the end of the year and they did begin their reading journey but that doesn’t justifies that I am a better reader than them, in fact I am still an amateur reader just like them.

I want to see the people around me to become prolific readers, not because I want to have intellectual friends whom I can discuss ideas with but rather they might see my point of view from reading and do the things they always wished they did from the discipline earned through reading.

I will return back to this post after several years later in the future but ever since I started with my reading journey and reviewing back the years, there is a noticeable difference on how I perceive things in life. The person I am right now might be achieving interesting milestones in life but the person I was in the past dreamt of achieving them and would never expect that reading and writing would lead to this situation which I am truly grateful for what I have done in the past.