The Value of Reading Redux

A post I wrote five years ago for this blog called "The Value of Reading" highlights nine reasons that reading adds immeasurable benefits to our lives. I doubt that piece will ever lose its importance, and it might be the best of 1,300-plus posts I've written here over the past nearly 20 years. At 451words, it is an easy and quick read, so I encourage you to read it.

Before going there, you can find right here a tenth reason for reading as an indispensable activity: Reading deepens our empathy. It brings the world closer to us. It helps us to better understand other people, origins, cultures, desires, attitudes, and actions. Through choice, quality reading, we immerse ourselves in the aspirations, challenges, shortcomings, strengths, and courage of those whose struggles we share and, in many cases, whose lives are far harder than ours. We find common ground. We rediscover those ideas and dreams that make us all human. 

So sure, pick up a newspaper and a magazine, but a book too. Stretch yourself and read a broad range of topics. It will make you a better human being.