Before entering high school, I hate an adamant hatred for reading. My parents tried to force me to read books and I would have to read for half an hour to an hour of each day so long as I had no obligations in the way. I remember randomly choosing "Harry Potter: Order of the Phoenix" because the hardcover was beautiful, but being incapable of paying attention past a few lines. I had the same severe case in school, where I read because my grade depended on it, but it was arduous and time consuming with my slower side of normal reading speed. The most anyone could get me to read happily was the "Captain Underpants" books and some of the popular manga at the time.

That began to change when I entered my freshman year of high school. I took a chance at reading again when a friend of mine recommended reading Angels & Demons by Dan Brown. While opinions of Dan Brown have changed drastically, his books were the first to excite me and glue me to the pages of a book. I expanded my horizons and began reading fantasy books like the Eragon series, more grounded books like The Kite Runner, and other novels. Of course I still had my love for comics and manga as well, but I grew a true appreciation for all forms of writing.

That transition from hating to loving the art made me realize a few things. First is that for many students, the process of doing book reports and reading obligatory texts is tedious and uninspiring. Of course it’s necessary in my opinion, but being forced to read literature that, more often than not, I hated was a major barrier in my path to realizing that my feelings towards reading were quite the opposite. I found my love of reading when I had the autonomy to decide what I read and read at my own pace without a deadline or piles of work in the way. To give another example, I absolutely hated Shakespeare throughout my academic career with the exception of Julius Caesar. I was reading things I didn’t fully understand at a fast pace, the pieces we read were boring to be frank, and writing reports on it afterward were not fun in the least. Eventually I decided to read Shakespeare’s As You Like It, on my own time and I absolutely loved it. We read his comedies in class as well, and the writing wasn’t drastically different from what we already read, but the leisure of reading at my own pace with no obligations, and forming my own opinions on the book was a new, refreshing experience.

What I’m trying to say is very simple. I believe that reading is passion that makes our lives more meaningful and that everyone has that passion to some extent. However, there are a lot of obstacles from us realizing that; for me it was forcibly reading with deadlines for school and wasting 30-60 min of every day reading for my parents. Everyone has experienced this and for many it makes it difficult to find joy through literature. I do believe however, that given the right book and the right conditions, anyone can. Books are the one thing that can tell stories despite time and age; they let explore worlds we will never see; and they help us see our own world through the eyes of the strong, weak, privileged, marginalized, intelligent, impaired and countless other perspectives. Literature connects people, teaches lessons, entertains, and more often than not makes us better people. Sometimes, for people like me, we just need the right kind of push before we dive headfirst into the limitless waters.