Time and again there has been talk on the lack of reading culture among the youth in Rwanda today especially since there have been many measures that have been taken to help change this. Many blame the many distractions available today that don’t quite help in the development of this culture.

Others even blame the lack of time to indulge in reading lengthy literal works because they are too busy solving real life problems. There is no denying that providing books to the different institutions will help encourage this culture but have these institutions  bothered to tell the prospective readers how helpful reading would be to them?

The importance of reading may seem quite obvious to some but not everyone really knows why they should read and how they’ll profit from this practice. Thus many don’t gain any interest at all in reading.

Making a sweeping statement like every young person doesn’t read would be incorrect and baseless because there is a growing culture of reading among the youth today. However there are still some that think of it as a boring thing to do, some even have strange prejudices towards this practice.

Individuals that tend to read a lot often have rich vocabularies because they spend a lot of time exposing themselves to literal works, there are most likely to pick up new words and use them. By using the new and interesting words they come off as smart, when all they did was read some book.

Reading is also otherwise referred to as the brain’s workout and so when one reads, they stimulate their brains to work better. This stimulation has been found to tremendously reduce one’s chances of getting Alzheimer’s as well as dementia- all memory related problems.

One of the first books I read for leisure and enjoyed was the first of the Harry porter series by author J.K.Rowling. I remember being so engrossed in the book I forgot where I was, the feeling was so surreal it almost felt like I was watching live. Experiencing this was not only entertaining but it made me admire a writer’s ability to so vividly capture and create an image in one’s mind with just mere words.

Interestingly you’ll find that great writers make great readers. So, if you’re an aspiring writer, start with reading as it exposes you to the published and well written text, something that’ll impact your writing tremendously.

However, it’s not that everything you read in a book or magazine is true in most cases it is someone else’s view of a particular situation. Reading as widely as possible helps you acquire strong analytical and critical thinking skills, these come handy in many situations in life.

In our seemingly very busy lives there very many distractions all around us making it quite hard for someone to focus on just one thing. Reading on the other hand enables you focus on only the story letting everything else fall away. This means that reading a book before work could help you focus and minimise the impact of the distractions around you.

From fiction to non- fiction works, books are an indispensable source of wisdom, a fact to which many successful business people, leaders and intellects can agree to.

With so much to offer, it’s clear that this habit when adopted can improve one’s life in many ways but it still is a choice. If you choose to embark on this journey then I dare you to keep going because you won’t regret it and if you choose otherwise at least you know what you’ll be missing out on.

The author is a student at University of Rwanda, College of Science and Technology.