When I sat down to try and decide what resolution to dedicate myself to this year, I understood I was essentially making a promise with myself. A promise to commit to something so that no matter what this next year brings, I always have something to fall back on. I was making a commitment to become a better person and more importantly, to become a better me.

I had a hard time picking my New Year’s Resolutions this year because, after all, there is so much I want to do. So much I should do. I want to learn more and keep challenging myself. I want to travel the world and in doing so, learn more about foreign cultures and world history. I want to experience new things and make new friends. The best way to do all of these things, for me, has always been to read. So, the answer soon appeared to me: My New Year’s Resolution is to read more. More pages, more books, more often.

Reading is a promised escape from the real world, but the same literature I use to escape reality also helps me to understand the real world better than I could on my own. The words within these pages teach me so much about life and about the people around me. What better way to try and understand human nature than to read the words transcribed so long ago by people just like me? Every time I open my next reading adventure, I open the door to an entirely unique experience. I see what life was like for Victorian women in Thomas Hardy’s novels. I read his poetry to learn his thoughts on love, while also learning about the society he lived in. Ernest Hemingway teaches me about World War I and shows me the daily life of a soldier on the frontlines. John Donne portrays God in a way that I have never seen him before and after reading his poetry, I am left more in awe of my Maker than I was before. Dylan Thomas inspires me to never go gentle, to always put passion and enthusiasm and love into every single thing I do. These authors are just the beginning. There are thousands of authors out there whose work sits on shelves waiting to be read and absorbed.

I am who I am today because of the poetry and prose I have leaned on growing up. The words of authors hundreds of years older than me have guided me through my life when I could not find the right words myself. Literature has been there for me for the last nineteen years, so this year, I want to make sure I appreciate everything the written word has to offer.