You have to become very selfish in the way you read.
When I first began reading, I didn’t have a reference point for what I valued or found useful in a book. So, I basically read anything that was suggested to me.
This isn’t a bad idea when you’re first starting your reading journey because you have to establish a foundation. But after a year or two of consistent reading, you begin to realize that there are times when you should close the book after reading only 2–3 pages, or when you’re 200 pages into a 300-page book, or when you should skip some chapters or pages.
At first, this behavior felt wrong. It felt like a cop-out.
But now I realize that you have a right to be selfish with what you read. There is an infinite number of books that you could read in relation to your finite life.
You have to be selective in what you read and what matters to you.
To me, this has become stories of peoples’ lives. I can see a life’s worth of decisions in a matter of hours of reading, which is invaluable to me as a way to augment the way I make decisions in my own life.
For others, it might be histories or novels or poems that become important to them. It’s OK to be picky.
You can’t learn everything.
What do you want to spend your limited time on and what do you want to learn?
