Things I Wish I Knew in High School: The Importance of Reading

While writing last week’s post, something my English teacher said hit me hard. Her advice was to keep checkpoints and plans of what to accomplish within those checkpoints, and one checkpoint was post-March Break till the start of June, which is 2 months. This made me realize that after next week’s March Break, there will only be 3 months of school left. 3 months of school and then I’ll graduate. And that made me reflect on everything I’ve done over the past 4 years. All the ups and downs I’ve faced and everything they taught me. There is so much I know now that I didn’t when I first started high school. So, I thought I would make a series of posts about things I wish I knew before I started high school.

Today’s post is about how I wish I knew the importance of reading before I started high school. I’d always been an avid reader, but I took my habit for granted. I thought I would always be able to pick up a book and read it to the end. I thought it would be easy to read any book, regardless of how it was written. What I didn’t know was that, unlike my time up until middle school, I would have to make time to read in high school. The first time I noticed this was early on, in Grade 9, when I returned a book from the school’s library without even reading the first chapter. I thought this was just a phase and it would go away once I was fully adjusted into the system of high school. I did adjust; I found my place, but I never found the time to read. Even books that were for a class seemed like a dreadful task. I found myself being able to reread books but not have the ability to start something new.

It was like I couldn’t risk spending time on something that wasn’t worth it. And it’s not like I didn’t try to get out of this reader’s block. I tried setting goals on Goodreads. I printed out PopSugar’s reading checklist for 2015, 2016 etc. I downloaded all these popular books on my phone to read the second I had free time. But nothing helped me get back to being able to finish at least one book a week.

I wish I could say I found a solution to my problem, but I signed a book out of my local library on the first day of this semester and I still haven’t found the motivation to read it. It’s saddening because I miss the adventures I went on, the inside jokes I made and all the love I felt from all the characters. They say that it’s a billionaire’s habit to read a lot. There are so many benefits to reading fiction and non-fiction, but you have to find the time for it. I can still read as many pages as I need to of a school’s textbook, but I want to be able to finish a fiction book if I pick it up.

I think I’m going to try having someone hold me accountable for how much I read, like an accountability group/friend. I’ll start small and try reading anywhere between 5-10 pages every day and have someone, whose opinion I value, check whether I’m sticking to my goal or not. I think this might help but I’ll record my progress and keep you updated through my Instagram story. Comment below how you got out of your reading block. Anything would be helpful at this point.

So, if any young high schooler is reading this, my advice would be to continue reading as much as you can because once you stop, it’ll be very hard to restart. Read, read, read.

This post was pretty short because it was painful to think about not having the habit of reading anymore but next week’s topic is a lot more interesting. Till then, read! - Aarushi