Reading without a Curios Mind is as good as not Reading
Passive Reading vs Active Reading
"A book is a garden, an orchard, a storehouse, a party, a company by the way, a counselor, a multitude of counselors." - Charles Caleb Colton
I know you have read a lot before, especially if you are reading this on LinkedIn or Substack.
How much of what you have read has stuck in your mind?
How much of that has impacted your mindset and demeanor?
How much of that has become a part of you or added to your knowledge base and is ready to serve you at your beck and call?
For most, “not much” is the answer almost always.
It’s not your fault; it’s just what is. Functioning in society doesn’t necessarily require you to keep getting better 1% every single day. Hardly anyone around you is that committed to constant progress, and so you buy into that lower standard, too, as life moves on without any constraints or hurdles.
But it calls for considering how much larger or more exciting life could turn out to be if you remembered the stuff you read and it stuck to you like glue does to any surface.
This calls for a different approach to reading, especially if you are committed to getting 1% better.
The above excerpt is from the book “The Missing Billionaires” by Victor Haghani and James White. You have 4 choices when you come across a technically loaded paragraph like this one -
Abandon the book completely
Abandon this specific part and move on with reading the book
Continue reading it all without understanding anything or how it all connects
Go slow, reread, go to Investopedia/Wikipedia and understand these topics, go through all charts or annotations provided for a deeper understanding of points made, think about these, make highlights, make notes - the whole process till the point sinks in and settles in the knowledgeable corners of your mind
Most will choose option 1,2 or 3 because life’s short, many pending tasks await you, and you don’t have time to understand everything deeply. If I were you, I would do the same, only and only if the content had no bearing on my life and the decisions I make.
But if the content does impact my personal and professional life in a manner that allows me to live healthier, compound my money at a handsome clip, or make me wiser, then I will be curious to go into the weeds of the subject matter and understand the points being made, the points around it, and how it all connects.
I will sit with the content until the process makes me comfortable with jumping through this technical explanation's hoop. It’s hard and frustrating sometimes, but so is anything that is life-changing.
Look at your life and think about most of the lessons you have learned or experiences that have transformed you. Chances are high they came about because of hard choices or struggles that you went through.
The comforts and pleasures of life rarely teach us anything except for giving us dopamine hits, which are joyful, too. But you aren’t learning anything in good times. It’s the tough times that break up, mould you, reshape you, and get you going as a better and stronger version of yourself.
The same thing happens in the mental world of knowledge accumulation. If it were easy, everybody would be an Einstein or a CV Raman. It’s not easy, and it’s not meant to be. It’s a laborious task, and it’s slow, but a curious mind thrives in this process of actively engaging with the material being consumed until it is absorbed and fits into the mental models in our inner recesses.
Reading is a self-development act wherein you stamp your commitment to becoming a better version of yourself. I would make the same statement even if you read fiction books because the act of reading itself requires focus on the task at hand, while you resist the wandering mind’s lust for distraction and shiny objects.
This act need not be reduced to a chore that you feel burdened with. It doesn't need to turn into virtue signaling, wherein you want to show the world how wise you are. It doesn’t need a hidden intent to sound smart in conversations until someone finds out that your understanding is hollow and falls apart if questioned or tested.
This act is a ritual on its own and needs your presence 100%, and it ends with a self-assessment question “Did you understand this wholly?”
If yes, great. Let’s move on to the next paragraph.
If not, reread, read descriptions in the book or other material, call a friend or colleague who understands these topics and resolves your queries, and move on only when your answer to the self-assessment question “Did you understand this wholly?” is YES, I DID.
This attitude shows that you respect your time and want to maximize the utility of the activity you are involved in.
It’s this attitude that speaks volumes about you. Without it, you coast through life, hoping no one discovers how hollow the river of knowledge runs within you.
You could coast for life that way, but it eventually comes to a halt. And I assure you, active reading is a surefire way of building a long runway ahead for thriving professionally and personally.
Try it out today !!
Wishing you a smashing day ahead !!
Sending you loads of love and luck 🧿
Manish
I realized while reading this, that the thing that prevents me from doing this is the pressure of finishing the piece of the book. And finishing it fast. The longer it takes me, the more pressure I feel. So weird