About reading

Yet every human is unique, our feelings and our needs do not diverse as much across different cultures over time. Chances are, every question that makes you scratch your head was already asked a thousand times by the others even before you were born. Every problem that you face in life must already be conquered by someone, somewhere. There must be a solution to everything. You can either sit here, hoping to be hit by miracles and enlightenment (that happen once in a hundred years). Or reach out and seek help.

Unless you're lucky enough to have a mentor who is always by your side to guide you through life, books are always your best friends and will never let you drown in despair.

There are a great variety of books that I am interested in: art, science, finance, health, psychology, cooking, and occasionally novels as well. Recently I am very much into self-help books. One of my friends once told me he never believed in any self-help books and thought they were a waste of time. I guess it very much depends on which stage of life you're in. You can't find a parenting book helpful if you're not planning to have kids. To me, every self-help book helps. Of course some of them are easier to understand, while others may take you a little more patience. You need to keep an open mind to let things inspire you. My point is, it doesn't really hurt you if the books you read can't solve your problems. But you hit a jackpot if it does. So why not give it a try?

How to pick a good book

My suggestion is to go to amazon.com and type something that you're interested. There are books about EVERYTHING that you can think of.

How to start a riot...LOL

Once you've found your topic, read about the authors of the books on your list. Study a bit more about his/her background, and see if he/she is reputable in that area. If you want to read about dieting, ask yourself do you like the author to be a scientist or a supermodel? they may approach the same problem in completely different ways.

Another useful way to pick a good book is to read the amazon reviews. Read the most popular ones as well as the ones that rated the book 1 star. Try to understand why these people love/hate the book and see if they make sense.

How to read a book

I have read a book about how to read a book. One interesting tip was, try not to read from the beginning till the end. Of course there are books that are truly page-tuners. But more often you will find several chapters in a book less interesting than the others. And most people will just stop there and give up reading. Next time when you read and find yourself losing interest in that book, jump directly to the next chapter. You'd rather skip something uninteresting than to miss out the more inspiring content that follows.

No time to read?

Really? What about the time that you spend on facebook, whatsapp, wechat, twitter, instagram, tv, youtube...I normally read on the bus before work, and after dinner before I go to bed. I read ebooks instead of physical books. I have installed amazon's kindle app on my iphone, ipad and laptop. This awesome app automatically synchronizes all your reading devices and remembers where you stop at.

You don't have to read only one book at a time

Thanks to the amazon kindle app, it's easy for me to switch from one book to another. Sometimes you may feel tired reading about the same topic and it is a good idea to take a break and read something else. I am currently reading a novel (Dan Brown's Inferno), a self-help book (Jen Sincero's You're a badass) and a book about behavioral science (Daniel Kahneman's Thinking fast, and slow). These books are covering completely different areas. So when I have too much of one thing, I switch to another.

My friends, I hope this entry encourages you to read more.

Keep learning!

XOXO