Essentialism & thoughts on reading

I’m trying to be as self-aware as I can, and I’ve noticed that I go through some phases when it comes to reading.

I’ve always wanted to make reading an essential part of my day. Sometimes I manage to do that, sometimes not so much, and I think it’s strongly related to the book I am reading. If I find a great book, I could read it in a day or two, and sometimes it could take months to finish it, and I would dread reading.

But I’ve heard good advice from some smart people saying that reading a book cover to cover should not be the gold standard, and you should not feel bad for skipping or abandoning a book if it’s not your cup of tea. Well, that’s exactly me.

I would feel bad for abandoning a book or not reading it entirely. I feel like it’s a waste not to read a book entirely, but on the other hand, it’s also a waste of time to read something that I’m not drawn to completely. I believe that you can always learn something from everyone, and it wouldn’t be a complete waste of time reading a book cover to cover.

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Today I had an epiphany, and whilst writing this blog, I remembered it. Here it is!

Even if a book, a video, podcast, article, or any piece of information is extremely valuable and potentially life-changing, the timing of it reaching a person is key.

I mean that circumstances, experiences, lessons, thoughts, mood, conversations, relationships and so on have a great impact on a person’s perception and openness to receiving, understanding, processing and implementing the information. So one could read or hear the same thing numerous times, but only after a while they could fully benefit from it because it was finally the right time. What do you think? I’m turning on the comments if you have some thoughts on this. I’m curious what’s your opinion. I might write something separate about this in the future.

OK, back to the original point of this article.

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I wanted to say that I will start a new book although I didn’t finish the one I was reading. I have bought Greg McKeown’s ‘Essentialism’ as I’ve heard great things about it. It’s been on my shelf for a while, waiting for its turn, but I think it’s worth reading it now. I strongly believe I will find valuable and actionable information that is going to improve my life.

I also want this blog to motivate me to read it carefully as I would like to write my first book review. So if I said I’m going to do it, now I have to do it because I want to be a person who always sticks to my word. Let’s see how that will go.

Have you read this book? Let me know what you think about it and what book do you recommend to read next.