Since we were old enough to recognize the English language, we have been told to read. Over time, life gets busy and technology takes over. In our generation, there is no room for books in our jam-packed schedules and social lives bursting at the seams. We are all on a mission to make a difference and establish ourselves in the world. We fight for our place, but we have forgotten one of the most powerful weapons we’ve been given: reading.

 

In a world hungry for progress, the strength of the human mind is most critical, and the best way to nourish the mind is with books. Exchanging thoughts with an author is one of the most genuine conversations we can have. When we read, we can be honest about our thoughts and be completely open to shaping them based on the wisdom of others. Nonfiction literature opens the mind up to a world that was set before us. We can learn about success and failure in order to shape our future. We can learn about the character of our world in order to approach her properly. We can learn about the discoveries of man to better innovate in our growing economy. There are countless tools found within the pages of nonfiction books, all of which can be held in our mind as an infinite tool belt.

 

However, I want to emphasize the underrated value of fiction. Books don’t simply tell you a story or list some facts. Many of them teach us how to learn. When you read "The Lord of the Rings," you aren’t only going to walk away with the characters’ names and the places they’ve been and the things they’ve done. You are going to have a sense of who the good guys were and the bad guys. Then, you’ll analyze their actions and validate the qualities of good and evil. You’re building up your philosophy of life! While nonfiction books are certainly valuable, they are not the sole source of knowledge. Fiction and imagination hold a great deal of wisdom about the nature of the world.

 

Your view of the world is shaped by the stories that you hear and how you relate to them as a person. We learn how to interpret the people around us because of what we experience in our imaginations. We rely on our own selves to teach us how people should be. When a book stretches our minds, we either find room to confirm what we believe or we find space to challenge it. This is how we learn. We take it in, allow it to fall into place in our human nature, and then we move forward with an added piece of knowledge or wisdom.

C.S. Lewis once wrote, “When I was ten, I read fairy tales in secret and would have been ashamed if I had been found doing so. Now that I am fifty, I read them openly. When I became a man I put away childish things, including the fear of childishness and the desire to be very grown up.” There is something spectacular that happens when the mind encounters words on a page. Read everything; read often; and allow your imagination to give your logical mind material to work with. Fiction is rich and continues to be rich after we’ve “outgrown” it. There is never a better time to explore and imagine.