Books We Read Shape Our Character And Personality
Reading is to the mind what exercise is to the body, said Richard Steele. Reading helps in every sphere of our live as it enriches our mind as well as develops our personality. We all have to read our course books to pass exams.
Reading Reveals Character
But what reveal our character are the books we read as a past time during our leisure hours. An old proverb says, “A man is known by the company he keeps.” It is also applicable to the books we read and derive pleasure from. Books have a much greater role to play in our lives than our friends. The influence of good as well as bad books on us is much more direct and intense than exercised by anything or anyone else.
Select Books With Special Care
We are free to read books of all types in the privacy of our bedrooms without anybody else knowing about the nature of their contents. We read them only for our pleasure. We should therefore take special care while selecting the books that we read for pleasure because they will eventually shape our character and personality that we seek to present to the outside world.
Reading self help books and biographies of great men in our spare time will help us grow and develop and we should always choose such books to derive pleasure as well as instruction from them.
January 31st, 2009 at 5:13 am
This is true to an extent. My good friend whom I mentioned in the last article about books reads absolutely anything she can access. She is also one of the smartest people I know. She readily favors history, and self help more than anything, and has written her own books, (including 2 cookbooks she is currently working on). So yes, I do believe that what we read shapes our personality, because we connect with the things the writer says. We can usually relate to the plot, in turn it makes us see ourselves for who we think we are.
And if you ask me, most of the time that is not a bad thing.