Why do you read?

Is reading a lot good or bad?

We commonly see nowadays, whenever we scroll past YouTube and social media, these “gurus” who advocate reading many books. A large number of people clamor for videos that explain the origins of success and how to obtain it.

Identifying this open market, content creators intelligently post videos trying to explain how these men created their fortunes. They try to decompose the habits of a successful few into one habit that’d be easily digestible by laymen viewers.

This idea is taken further when ultra accomplished individuals like Warren Buffet advise reading an insane number of books per year because that’s what he did.

Everybody wants the secret to being a wise, successful billionaire and when these individuals speak, people listen. Though these attempts at deciphering the “secret of success” may be noble, there seems to be a disproportionate focus on reading and a constant stream of videos claiming to describe “Billionaire Habits” on social media.

Searching “why to read many books” or “reading billionaire” on YouTube gives a wide range of results. Individual content creators, interviews with accomplished people, the opinion of Bill Gates describing how he reads, and many more. Reading books has been inexorably linked to billionaires somehow, someway, and I am not sure what to think about that.

The downfall of self-improvement

The self-improvement community around the world has latched onto statements like this. And it’s a good thing because reading IS good for you and this fact should be and is deeply rooted into public consciousness.

I don’t contest with any of the content of the videos themselves. In fact, I used to be a huge proponent to maximizing the number of books read every year because I agreed with all these figures, and, as an avid reader of books, I saw nothing but positives in trying to read more, faster.

“It would only bolster my knowledge and make me better, right?”

It was in 2023 that I realized that there could be something missing in that straightforward assessment.

While reading is definitely great for you, obsessing over reading more is not and I fear that social media is taking balance out of the equation in this regard.

In this blog post, I hope to talk about my experiences trying to read as much as I could.¹ I will also question some ideas floating around in social media to highlight some negative aspects of trying to read too much, too fast, so we can ward ourselves against that and only keep the benefits that reading provides us.

Why not to read 100 books this year

First of all, some context. This all began for me when I challenged myself to read 100 books in 2023. The website Goodreads holds reading challenges each year during which you can set a number of books that you will try to read in the year. I did the same and set out to read 100 books. I calculated the number of books I would need to read weekly so I could set a schedule, which came out to be 2 books per week, an insane pace given the type of books I read: oftentimes non-fiction averaging around 500 pages.

1 down, 2 down, 5 down. I followed my schedule consistently and plodded along. Around book 20, I started noticing something that prompted me to slow down considerably and get off my schedule. I noticed that my pleasure at reading books had been steadily dwindling during this time. Just as problematic was the fact that I’d already entirely forgotten what I’d read in Fahrenheit 451, book one on my list.

Book reading becomes a slog

I started to think: what was the point of reading 100 books in a year if I couldn’t remember the words I’d read in half of them by the end? The very thought of starting a new book started filling me with dread, something completely new to me. Instead of thinking about the cool stuff I’d get to read about and learn, I started calculating at what pace I’d need to read the pages to get by the current book so I could attack the next one in a similar fashion.

What would I even achieve by reading 100 books in this way? Would it only be so I could smugly dish out some obscure piece of wisdom and look smarter at parties?

Eventually, I realized that focusing on the number of books read was extremely superficial and not worth my time. It did nothing to increase my understanding of the world, I learnt nothing new, and the only thing left behind was a dull glimmer of what the author had tried to say.

Finding the reason to read

I realized that I needed to hone in on the why of reading. Why was I reading these books? Instead of racking up the numbers, wouldn’t a more fruitful approach be to read good books, take my time, and really digest the concept? With 2 books a week, I had no time to sit back and reflect on what I’d just read. It would be totally go, go, go; onto the next one.²

Eventually I gave up the challenge around book 50 and promised myself that I would never count the number of books I read ever again. While reading books, I would not even make a note of the page I was on and instead give my full focus to every single word and underline every interesting idea I’d come across.

I started reading books this way and the dust slowly settled. Reading books stopped being a drag as it had become during the course of the challenge to my great pleasure.

I considered not enjoying reading to be something extremely unfortunate that had happened because I’ve always enjoyed reading. That is why I read after all and not because I wanted to become wiser. Good side-effects as they may be, I still wanted to keep my primary reasons for reading intact: for good old enjoyment.

I didn’t want to lose the little kid me who read Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows 9 times because it was plain and simple AWESOME or the child who buried his nose in Tintin and Archies comics the whole day. Those are my roots and they have influenced me after all these years to keep reading. Without them, I would have never found myself writing these words and I never want to forego them.

Billionaires, success, and reading

A hyper focus on reading has pervaded society due to some prominent billionaires stating how it has influenced their success. This thought by itself is perfectly fine. However, some problems arise when other actors – YouTube channels, “Gurus”, or even Goodreads and their reading challenge – reshape the message to make it about the number of books we read per year.

This is a negative because I fear it makes people begin reading for all the wrong reasons which eventually could make reading not enjoyable for them as the Goodreads challenge did for me. We want to increase the number of readers in this world over time and not reduce it!

There are several categories of videos focusing on reverse engineering billionaires I see on YouTube. Some that describe why billionaires read every single day, some that offer specific book recommendations that will “make you millions”, or a particularly irksome series of videos titled “Billionaire Habits” which are exactly what they sound like: habits that billionaires swear by that allowed them to become successful. I watched some of these videos and these are some “Billionaire habits”

• Fix your sleep schedule
• Work hard
• Exercise
• Meditate
• Read books

and so on. I don’t know if these are “billionaire habits” or things your mum has pleaded you to do all your life.

The sheer number of similar videos out there and the views they’re getting is frankly slightly alarming. Social media creators create the videos that the audience responds positively to after all. The algorithm just reflects our viewing patterns so there definitely is a big market for these videos.

Why?

There seems to be an obsession of becoming billionaires nowadays which strikes me as strange. And reading a lot of books has been attached to this trend.

The glorification of billionaires and its effect on reading books

First, let’s address this increasing fascination with wealth and then talk about the role of books in success. What’s with this obsession of becoming a billionaire nowadays? Since when did people aspire to amass a wealth instead of hoping to become a doctor, painter, researcher, or other things that contribute to society?

A person wanting to become a doctor is a pursuit that comes attached with several certainties: that the person will be treating sick patients, will be a contributing member of medicine at their region, an integral part of a hospital, and will be proving an intensely necessary service to society, one that has forever been needed and forever will be.

Comparing that to “I want to become a billionaire”, it seems the latter is completely empty. There is no pursuit or promise that the person will be doing anything for society. Wanting to become a billionaire is a facade that is meaningless besides a desire for huge personal gain. Hidden behind that desire is only childish, unlimited spending – services, vacations, cars, flashy things – and an absurdly entitled desire to be special. Nothing more.

Unless somebody has an idea they’re wanting to propel forward, be it a business, book, or an endeavor, my opinion is that the words “I want to be a billionaire” should only be said when singing Bruno Mars’ song.

Does reading make you rich?

This is challenging to answer. A simple thought experiment: you spend a year reading books and doing nothing else. Would you earn any money? Obviously no.

It isn’t purely by reading books that we can become rich. It is rather who we become thanks to the books we’ve read or the ideas we have become aware of

It is undeniable that reading a lot of good books exposes you to a lot of interesting viewpoints. A person with the right mindset could use that knowledge in the right setting to become more successful. But videos claiming “billionaire X recommended this reading list, so thou shalt go forward and read this list or die trying”, this kind of mentality is what I am pushing against firmly.

If I have kids one day and they ask me if they should reads books to be successful, I will tell them to read for knowledge and never because books will bring you anything, success or otherwise. I doubt that anybody in this world became successful by doing such hacky things.

Reading any billionaire’s Wikipedia page shows us that billionaires passionately tried to solve a previously unsolved problem that society had and monetized the solution, bestowing everybody tremendous value thereby amassing their wealth.

0 fucks given about books

If any fucks were given, they were given due to personal interests, like in the case of Warren Buffet.

How to read

Take your interests as blessings from god

I have learnt a lot about how to approach reading through these reflections and experiences. Firstly, I’ve realized that it is important to never taint the things I enjoy by pushing unreasonable expectations on myself. Our interests and desires seemingly come out of thin air, a cocktail of our past experiences, subjective thoughts, and… god knows what.

But it’s a mystery to us why or how we came to be interested in specific things. Sometimes we may be able to pinpoint the blossoming of an interest to a moment or person’s influence. Other times, it’s not that straightforward. It is sacred. It makes us who we are. They are our crutches through life, crutches that entertain us whenever we feel bored and lonely. Respect your interests and don’t industrialize it. That’s what we’re doing when we try to read X number of books this year.

Force kills interests

Secondly, forcing anything onto myself will cause only misery. The things that I’ve wanted to do least in life have always been ones that have been pushed onto me. With my experiences last year, life sat me down and taught me once more that even things I forced onto myself would also create a similar level of resistance and ruin the experience of whatever we were supposed to do.

Therefore, to avoid creating an aversion to reading, I need to be free and only pick up a book when my heart calls it out. The only goal I promise to have while reading is to read what the author has written for me. My enjoyment of reading the story or information guides me. I find my fingers turning the pages naturally without even looking at how many pages I’ve read and how many I need to get through. My pencil underlines interesting lines one after another. And suddenly, I’ve finished the book and enjoyed every second of it.

Read actively

I interact with the book and its ideas. Not only do I enjoy the book, I also try my best to deeply understand it. Through my underlined notes, I create a map of big picture of the book and the ideas that the author wanted to emphasize. When thinking about those lines, I consider the context of the book and how they support the information. Reflecting on their implications about the world, I ask if everything is clear or needs more clarification. In cases of confusion or disagreement, I seek additional information before proceeding. I also look for similar ideas from other authors if available.

I do this while reading and especially at the end, once I have the full picture of the book. At this point I’ll have a solid understanding of the ideas in the book so the next step can begin: how can I weaponize the ideas I’ve just learnt. How can I apply it to my life, to make my life richer, to obtain a better understanding of the world, to make things easier, to start thinking differently, something, anything. Although I read in service of my heart’s calling, I still want to take something away because I respect books, the research, and the effort that goes into writing a book. I want to do it justice.

Know that you can’t read it all

This process is no longer about just reading a book passively but being engaged with the words. Therefore I will pick my books carefully. I will remember Carl Sagan’s words on picking what books to read carefully. Even reading passively, one cannot expect to read more than several thousand books in a normal lifetime. An inaccurate estimate of total number of books that existed in the world back in 2010 put the number at 129,864,880 books.

I don’t know about you, but I don’t have that many lifetimes floating around. The focus needs to be on reading the most highest quality books possible, engaging with them, and enjoying the process. I am going to let my heart decide which books to focus on, novels that are interesting to ME. I won’t pick up a book because it was on a top-500 books-to-read-before-you-die list (although lists such as these can be used for inspiration of course).

Conclusion

I do not disagree with Warren Buffet. Who am I to do that anyways? He is a very wise man who has accomplished a lot in life. I can only hope to one day reach the level of success that he has been able to amass. All I wanted to do was to point out a caveat that people hearing his advice may not think about.

Because I didn’t.

The caveat being that Mr. Buffet has been a life long reader and has throughly enjoyed reading. Only people who are totally cuckoo about reading can sustain a crazy pace for so long.

He has no doubt built his abilities slowly throughout life and we need to keep that thought firmly stuck on our heads before we bury ourselves underneath a pile of books. Mr. Buffet probably also reads the highest caliber books and journals that fall in his own domains of interest. To force yourself to read because society tells you is to guarantee that you will never become a lifelong reader. Force is a passion killer. And without passion, living is just existing.

I hope you will read to your heart’s content, everything that strikes your fancy, and that it never becomes a chore for you. I hope we all develop an affinity to reading seek to fully understand what we’ve read. And one more thing… Finish War and Peace for me, will ya?

1. Like many other people, my desire to maximize my reading was also influenced by an effort to better myself. No doubt hearing famous billionaires praise reading books and watching the videos that I am critical of played their part in convincing me that this was a good use of my time. ↩︎
2. You have to bear in mind that my opinions are totally based on my reading speed, my comfortability with reading books, and subjective experience. You may find that 2 books a week is totally doable for you, given your experiences as a reader. But if you’re anything like me and you do not read super fast and like to take your time, you should definitely focus more on quality rather than quantity. ↩︎