Why Do We Read? (Expert's View)

by Aiman Azlan



My name is Aiman Azlan. I am a motivational speaker, a Youtuber, a social media influencer, and an author. I wrote and published 3 books to date: Hidup Penuh Erti (2014), The Other Side of the Coin (2014), and Bercinta Selepas Nikah (2015).

Having said that, can I be honest about something? I don’t like reading. 

There, I said it.

It might be a bit weird for an author to not like reading, given that he writes books hoping that other people will read them. But if you look at it differently, it is not weird at all because you don’t need to like reading to become an author.
In fact, you don’t need to like reading to read. 

Reading, at the core of it, has nothing to do with liking it or not. Why? Because in principle, reading is not a hobby. Reading is a need. To put it simply, I think of reading the same way how I think of exercising.
It doesn’t matter if you like exercising or not. The fact is, you need to exercise regardless. Otherwise, your physical health will deteriorate. That is especially true given that our modern lifestyle involves a lot less movements.

So whether you like it or not, you need to exercise. Get your body moving, your heart pumping, and your blood flowing. Otherwise, your body will end up being tired, slow, and ultimately unable to perform to its full potential. 

After that, when there is a small physical activity you have to do, your body can’t handle it and you start to complain about how hard it is - even though that activity is just you walking up a flight of stairs. A simple task can seem heavy when your body isn’t maintained well.

Same thing can happen to the mind. The mind needs exercise too. Otherwise, like the body, the mind can end up being tired, slow, and ultimately unable to perform to its full potential. Without exercise, the mind can’t do a simple task - like thinking properly.
A simple thinking process can be “too heavy” because the mind lacks exercise.
So how do we exercise the mind? Well you guessed it - you need to read. Reading is like jogging for the mind. It keeps the mind fit and ready to face the world with its infinite problems that require critical and creative minds to solve.

If not, then you will complain that something is “too heavy” for your mind to handle. Of course it’s too heavy, your mind is obese my friend.

Lift a book and read!


*The author is a writer for multiple books, also known as a  Youtuber who owns a Youtube channel centering around video blogs, with over 2 million views and over 30,000 subscribers. He graduated from University of Toronto with a Double Major in Biology and Psychology.
He works as a full time freelance motivational speaker. He travels locally and internationally to engage the youths, on psychospiritual issues. Currently he focuses on his signature 3-step self-confidence building program under the Speak Up! Project (fb.com/speakuplah). He can be contacted at hello@speakup.my

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