That night, when everyone else was asleep and I was at my working desk, reading (or I could say, busy deciding which books to read ), I suddenly came to the realization that there’s a difference between a person who loves reading and a person who loves books.
For me, to love reading is:
- to love the process of comprehending and understanding the written words (hence, a reader doesn’t really mind dog-earing or annotating their books)
- to focus on the knowledge within the books - to be concerned about the impact of a book’s content on one’s life
- to make sure to read daily
- to have the goal of becoming a reader, instead of simply being a book buyer or a book lover.
So, when it comes to being a reader, the yardstick isn’t how many books we have on our shelves, but rather how reading has helped us improve as a person and how it has become a daily habit.
However, I can say that loving to buy books is one of the stages toward becoming a reader. We can’t really fall in love with books if we are far from them. And yes, there’s nothing wrong with reading for leisure. But it’s important not to get stuck at the stage of “reading ONLY for leisure” because reading is indeed a form of work — a deep work that we have to do in order to grow.
When we read only for leisure, we tend to read only when we have free time, and only for comfort, not for growth or knowledge. But when we have the mindset of reading for growth, we’ll make time for it, and we’ll seek books that can help us grow.
That’s why busy people (CEOs, stay-at-home mothers, working mothers, doctors, etc.) are still able to read many books in a year. Does that mean we can’t read for leisure or escapism? Of course we can. We do need books for those purposes. We are human beings, and we have various needs. Just make sure that we don’t label reading as merely a hobby.
“Read, in the name of your Lord Who created...” (Al-‘Alaq: 1)
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