Reading Can Transform Your Life

Reading can transform the way you see yourself and life. Why? Reading expands your world and deepens your knowledge of it, strengthens your ability to communicate, and improves your critical thinking.  

#1 Reading Expands Your World and Deepens Your Knowledge 

Reading about people, places, particular periods in history, and realities familiar and unfamiliar to you expands your worldview. While I was in community college, the most captivating account I read of the power of reading was the book The Autobiography of Malcolm X.  The book details Malcolm X’s journey to becoming one of the most prominent civil rights leaders of the 1960s. In it, he describes how he learned to read while imprisoned. He was motivated by his desire to write letters to Elijah Muhammad, the leader of The Nation of Islam.  

Malcolm X struggled to read and write since he had dropped out of school in eighth grade. Inspired by an inmate named Bimbi, he went on to copy and study an entire dictionary and read it aloud. Through that learning process, he became fascinated by books, reading, and the pursuit of knowledge. Through consistent efforts, Malcolm X gradually became a skilled and discerning reader. As described with Malcolm X’s experiences, reading can and does shape the way we think about ourselves and how we show up in the world. Reading can also increase our level of focus, patience, and discipline, all of which are important life skills needed to manage our day-to-day lives, relationships, careers, and academics.  

Reading can allow us to better analyze our own experiences through hearing other people’s stories. When I was drafting my memoir Destined, I had to learn how to write about my traumas while also recognizing the profound lessons that I drew from them and how those experiences have shaped my life. One story I read, Breaking Night, by Liz Murray, and the movie I watched based on the same memoir, Homeless to Harvard: The Liz Murray Story, helped with that effort. Murray grew up in poverty with drug-addicted parents, struggled to attend school throughout her childhood, and eventually became homeless at the age of 15. While homeless, Murray attended an alternate high school, where she set the goal of earning her diploma in two years instead of four and maintaining an A average.  She ended up achieving her goals, was accepted at Harvard University, and won a New York Times scholarship that paid for her education. 

What struck me the most about Murray’s story was how much compassion and love she had for her parents, despite all the pain she experienced because of them, and how she shared her story and that of her family with openness and courage. Murray’s story helped me share the painful experiences of separating from parents at the age of 10 and being raised by an aunt. We tend to think that our sufferings are unique to us and make us different from other people, but one thing reading can do is to dispel this sense of loneliness.

Another aspect that struck me about her story is the lessons that she pulled from her struggles and from the people who supported her along the way, especially in Breaking Night’s chapter 12, titled “Possibility,” where she details her high school experiences. For Murray, remaining in school was a daily choice she had to make to stay the course. She had to imagine a future she had not yet seen to inspire herself to keep going. She had to lean on and draw strength from her teachers, who showed up for her and other students, who taught her the importance of connecting with others, of being authentic and of striving for excellence, and who believed in her ability to change her life. 

Murray’s story allowed me to better see and understand my own story – that’s why reading can be a gift to ourselves. 

My article “One Key Strategy to Become a Skillful Reader in Community College” is about how to better understand a text – the more you can comprehend a text, the more you can use that knowledge to understand yourself, the world around and beyond. 

Is there a book or story that has profoundly affected your life? What lesson did you take away from that book or story?

#2 Reading Strengthens Your Ability to Communicate

Reading increases and diversifies your vocabulary and solidifies your command of a language, whether it’s English or any other language. The more command of a language you have, the more you can communicate through reading, writing, and speaking. 

For example, Malcolm X became one of most charismatic orators of his time through reading. The topics he read about included genetics, the atrocities of slavery, and the histories of other nations. And the knowledge he gained allowed him to better understand the realities of Black Americans and their  connection to other Black populations around the world. With this understanding, as a leader in the Nation of Islam and later as the central figure of his own  movement, Malcolm gave speeches about the oppression of Black people in America and the need for them to fight for their human rights. His passionate reading prepared him to speak to audiences across America. I myself experienced this improved ability to communicate as a student at community college while immersed in reading different course materials.  Reading can lead us to develop a rich vocabulary, provide clarity on where we stand on any issue that we’re passionate about, and equip us to communicate our thoughts with confidence. 

Reading can also improve your writing skills. As a college or university student, you need solid writing skills to perform well in your courses and more importantly, to develop yourself as an intellectual. In order to improve your own writing, it’s essential to have good models to follow, and that is what reading provides. I share how writing has helped me in my personal and professional lives here. 

What is one way reading has improved your communication?

#3 Reading Improves Your Critical Thinking 

Reading allows you to develop the necessary critical thinking to consume and assess arguments, opinions, and information in general and come to your own conclusions. For example, Malcolm X concluded through his readings that racism was a reality not only in America but also in many countries around the world and therefore addressing it would require unity among Black people globally. And he later welcomed anyone, regardless of race, who wished to support Black people in their fight for human rights. Malcolm X’s thoughts evolved overtime as he read, met more people, and traveled overseas. Those collective experiences led him to assess the teachings of Elijah Muhammad more critically and to break away from the Nation of Islam.

I have a personal example of how reading improves critical skills. When I was a student writer and reporter at community college, I read, analyzed, and synthesized a large amount of information. When writing an opinion piece, I needed to articulate my position with persuasiveness and clarity. And to do so, I had to read and understand other people’s positions on the matter, express why I agreed or disagreed, and state what I believed and why. When I was reporting, I consulted different sources of information to learn more about a topic, to assess the accuracy of materials, and to finally arrive at a conclusion. This repeated practice of reading and analyzing information strengthened my critical thinking skills. 

Was there something you read in one of your courses, or on your own, that opened your eyes to a new way of thinking about an issue? 

Closing Thoughts

That’s it for this article on how reading can transform your life. Reading can expand your world, strengthen your communication skills, and improve your critical thinking.  

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Do you want to know more about how I went from a high-school dropout to a master’s degree? Order your copy of my memoir, Destined: A Story of Resilience and Beating the Odds, on Amazon.

I would appreciate your review of Destined on Amazon!

Thank you for reading. Wishing you all the best.

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