I used to obsess over reading every single word in a book.

Until I realised that’s not the point.

Reading whole books is a waste of your time. I liked doing that in the past so I could confidently say I read a whole book and then chuck it into the list of books I’d read that year. Your life isn’t measured by how many books you read though. Your job isn’t to spend all your time accumulating as much knowledge as possible.

How many books you read in a year doesn’t matter. It isn’t a flex at all.

You certainly need to read. If you aren’t, you’re missing out on a lot. However, reading itself isn’t the point of reading. It’s not the main goal. It’s only a support for everything else you do in life. It only gives you knowledge to improve your thinking and behaviour, so you’ll do a better job in the real world.

All the ideas in a book aren’t relevant.

Don’t force yourself to read all the parts of a book that aren’t useful or relevant to you. Books aren’t precious objects. They’re tools. You can use them however you want.

Feel free to skip the useless parts in whatever book you’re reading. That’s not a crime. Take only the best ideas that are relevant to your life and start applying them straightaway.

You might not be able to say you read a whole book if you flipped through most of it. But think about this: would you rather be someone who read 50 books in a year and whose life is still the same or would you want to be the person who only read one that same year but actually improved their life?

You’d rather be the second person, right?

So stop trying to read as many books as possible. Start making the most improvements to your thinking and behaviour with the least amount of books.

Reading isn’t bad. Spending your whole life reading undoubtedly is.

Don’t abuse reading. Don’t use it to escape from the problems you have in your life. It won’t magically solve them. Don’t be the person who’s addicted to reading books and who runs away from taking action in the real world.

Essentially, don’t make reading your main job in life. Make sure it only plays a supporting role.