Do you remember reading a book that changed your life? Reading allows the reader to experience a life other than their own. It will enable them to expand their exposure and teaches them how to think from a different perspective.
You might have heard people saying that reading makes you smarter. You might have also heard that reading improves your memory and if you are a writer, it can help you get better at it. Where these things are all true, there is more to reading great books than just making you smarter.
A great book has the tendency to make you understand the world better and become more productive towards your life and work. What’s even more interesting—and maybe a little counterintuitive—is that it can help you to improve yourself, while letting you explore the world through stories that reflect the reality in numerous ways.
So here are some ways in which a great book can change a reader’s life
The sense of belonging
If you are a reader, you must have experienced a connection with the person at the other end of the dialogue that is the author. Much more than that, you will feel a connection with the reality that exists somewhere else. There is even a probability that you might feel like you have gone through or have experienced a similar situation as present in the book.
Think about it: it doesn’t matter when, where or in what language the book was written. However, the conversation that you are having with the writer through the book is what makes you feel that you are not alone and your struggles and dreams are shared. This is the comfort of belonging that a great book can provide you with.
Makes the reader empathetic
A great book can flex your empathy. It helps you in connecting with the person, i.e. the protagonist who is telling his or her story and trusting the reader to understand their situation even though you disagree with it. It helps you to relate with a person and put yourself in their shoes while trying to understand them and seeing the world from their perspective.
This feeling of empathy helps the reader in enhancing their level of tolerance and helps them to accept the diversity in opinions of people, so even if there is a feeling of disagreement, you are able to understand the emotion of the other person.
Teaches you humility
Every book that you read opens a new window to the universe, giving you the opportunity to explore and expand your horizons. It invalidates your ego of “I know everything” as you are learning a new thing with every passing moment while reading. It also helps you to embrace the truth. You become more modest knowing that you do not have all the answers and thus you do not have the upper hand on anybody.
Consider your life like the universe. The more you explore the universe, the more expanded it feels. Similarly, the more experiences you will have, the more willing you will be to learn and experience.
You discover yourself
Imagine this: you are reading a book and nodding along the way while thinking that yes, this is how it is. Well, you have just discovered yourself. The words written on a page are likely of a stranger, but they are appealing to your mind in a way that makes you feel that you might have been living a stranger’s life and the more you read, the more you are educating your mind about what you truly are.
When you cry, smile or wince while reading a book, you might have felt like you’ve been searching for that moment your entire life but never knew about it. The feeling of a stranger has depicted your whole world, may be described your past or your beliefs or the slightest hope you carry inside you; it has helped you to discover yourself. It helps you in connecting with the best side of yourself that you never knew you had.
Helps you in developing confidence
The great book challenges your core beliefs, saying that whatever, you strongly held to be the truth, it is essentially wrong. It makes you question yourself and pushes you to find the truth. Be it fiction or non-fiction, auto-biography or history, it will challenge your beliefs, and by defending them, you will grow stronger, regardless of the outcomes.
Relieves stress
A critically composed book will catch the reader’s attention time cease to exist, and your mind is completely engaged with what is in front of you. It will make you stop from rushing and all the worries, anxieties, fears, and ambitions which are the major causes of stress becomes lost in the imagination. All that you would be curious about is what surprise will you get on the next page.
It is a source of pure happiness
Reading is a healthy habit. Nobody has the time to read books that are irrelevant, or they do not like. There are books that challenge your intellect, and then there are those that take you to another world. These are the qualities that keep a reader interested in reading. So the amount of time that you spend with books should be an investment, and the return on these investments is pure happiness and pleasure of having to experience it, the happiness of having learned from it and the pleasure of finding a new friend through it. This takes time and tolerance which enriches your life with the best of experiences that you could have, and your life will change because of it.
Conclusion
A great book can help in countless ways. It does not only let you change your perspective of life; it helps you in enjoying the moment that you spend with it. In exchange, it makes you curious and helps in exploring the unexplored. In other words, it makes you adventurous and opens your mind toward other opinions. It gives you the opportunity to know yourself better and helps you to seek the knowledge and understanding of things that you never understood before in the most exciting way.