Picking up a book and reading for leisure may not be your activity of choice. Since elementary school, books have become a concrete chore rather than being used as comfort and serenity. While the books you were assigned for 18 years were important and significant, they do not represent every piece of literature in the world so you shouldn't dispose of the thought right away.
Finding the time to read can be difficult too. If you're in college you're already swimming in a pool of assignments and the thought of another book could make you drown. Even in the everyday schedule life doesn't have an on-and-off switch so seeing reading as a leisure activity can be blurry. However, reading is an activity you can do anywhere that not only makes you smarter by doing so, but it can increase your critical thinking skills and creativity (I don't mean textbook reading).
Nothing has ever calmed my mind and secured my heart like a good book. Reading can be a reminder that you're not alone. You can take a situation in your life and relate it back to one of the characters in your book, suddenly having your life becoming alive. Whether an emotional, physical, social, or even spiritual dilemma, sometimes when you can't put feelings and thoughts into words, a book can.
Reading for the class you're typically assigned the same genre but there are endless styles of literature out there that are awaiting their turn to have their pages flipped. Test out a book and after 50 pages if you don't like what you're reading, replace it for another. Dip into a genre you never thought you would read, challenge yourself.
One of the best intriguing benefits of a book is that it allows you to create your own movie. From the moment you read the first line of the novel, you step into a whole new universe. A universe that you are creating yourself. Think of it just like when a book is turned into a movie. The director changes the details to how they imagined it. When you read a book, you become the director and producer, creating the movie you visioned. The characters look how you want them to and the scenes are detailed with the perfect soundtrack, the exact movement between two characters and the scenery provides an emotional feeling you got when you read that specific chapter. Everything is exactly how you saw it when you entered into that alternate universe.
Ask a friend or teacher who is an avid book lover for recommendations. Do a little research online or check out a small local bookstore and peek around. Start a book and if it takes you eight months or more to read, let it. Pick up the local newspaper, read an online article that has gone viral on Facebook, whatever it may be, don't stop reading what is out there.
Enjoy and never take for granted the unlimited minds that are put into words and are available at your fingertips.
