How to enjoy reading again.

I think I might know how?

Story-time, go grab some tea, this might be a long one.

I was born and raised in a third world country, a dangerous country, and I used to consider myself an unlucky child. Because my father was a police officer, a sheriff - for all intents and purposes- in one of the most dangerous metropolis in South America.

They were instructed by the government to send their kids to some version of a private school, as private as they could afford, and I was instructed to keep my mouth shut. What does your dad do? He works for a government institution. That’s all I was allowed to say. I guess way back when, in the year 2005 or so, South America was going through a rough patch where leaders of different gangs would purposely kidnap and harm children connected in any way, shape or form to the police force.

My dad’s professional career was a tumultuous one and I hated it. I was too young to understand the dangers and traumas he experienced. I was forced to leave the public school system and I was enrolled in an expensive private college. I only realized how big of a privilege that was many years later.

I was at that school for seven years. I was bitter and entitled and I thought that was some exaggerated form of protection. I didn’t want to hangout around rich kids, because we weren’t rich really. My dad had to sacrifice a lot of things to keep me there.

But oh boy, if there is one thing rich kids are incentivized to do, is read.

My school had audio speakers spread throughout the entire campus, which was huge by the way. And audio speakers were new technology for 2005, definitely new technology for a small town in rural South America. And twice a day, for 15 minutes, classical music would start blasting throughout the entire school. Twice a day, at random times every day of the week mind you.

No matter what class we were on, it could even be physical education, the ENTIRE SCHOOL, teachers, cleaners, our cooks, we all had to stop what they were doing when the instrumental music started blasting through the speakers and we had to pick our “book of the week” (which is something we carried around on us at all times, since we had library meet ups weekly as well where we were FORCED to take out a book, read it and review it a week later, orally, in front of the whole class) and sit down and read until the music stopped.

It was uncanny. We could be in the middle of a basketball match. Our coach would blow his whistle, balls would stop bouncing, silence would ensue, everyone would run to their backpacks, take out their books and sit down to read for 15 minutes. Yes, we sat on the floor, on the bleachers, on our desks. If the playlist started playing when you were in the bathroom you had to rush back to the classroom.

Twice a day, everyone in the entire school read, in synchrony, and that guaranteed that all of us would be forced to read for at least 30 full minutes a day. I have no idea if that was common practice among private schools in South America. I have no idea if we were trying to copy some British model of education to make rich parent’s happy, I will never know. I don’t even think there is a way I could find out if they still do it, if the school is still open, if the owner is still alive…

Anyways, those 30 daily minutes, changed everything for me. It transformed me into the most avid reader. I remember at some point those 15 minute breaks became too little. I would grown loudly, almost cry somedays, because I would give my LIFE to keep reading and not go back to math, or geography, or PE. It was torture. Pure, unadulterated torture.

I am sure a lot of teachers probably pretended to read, I am sure a lot of kids did that too. But to see every single authoritative figure stop their class to read with us? And the fact that they were also forced to carry a book with them at all times? Sometimes I feel like I dreamt it all, that it wasn’t even real.

But it worked, monkey see, monkey do.

And before realizing, I would run home once the day was done, just to swallow my dinner whole so I could jump right back into that scene in that book I was FORCED to put down. It’s like the school was edging us on with our reading, constantly, forcing us to start, but also forcing us to stop.

I have been trying to recreate that feeling ever since. I can only read with instrumental music, I have thousands upon thousands of reading playlists. You can find my most popular one here if you’d like to try out this method for yourself.

I am telling you this story because honestly I never shared it with anyone, and I caught myself thinking about it a lot this week. I was one lucky fucking bastard. In a time where our literacy rate is the lowest it has ever been. Where, let’s be honest, even the book world has been contaminated by capitalism to the point where we can compare it to fast fashion.

I am an adult now.

An exhausted adult who pays her bills, works 9 hour days and I feel like I had to fight tooth and nails to keep my love for reading alive. I’ve had my ups and downs. The road has been bumpy for sure.

Most days, I am so fucking depressed and exhausted that reading 20 pages before bed is nearly impossible. I pass out within seconds. And when I do have the time to read, I am too amped up from the stress I experienced throughout the week to actually slow down. My phone addiction gets in the way, and I also find myself extremely frustrated with some of our new releases. Shitty writing, low effort content, copy, paste and repeat.

But I can’t shake that feeling. That feeling I realize I have been trying to recreate for most of my life. The feeling of losing myself in a book for 15 minutes, only to realize a few days later, I could do it for hours.

Here is our chance to edge ourselves on with reading again. 15 minutes, every day, twice a day. Like medicine, until one day, once that 15 minute timer goes off, you want to moan and groan and scream and stay there. In that book. And never leave.

If you have been having trouble concentrating…

Or if you have been exhausted, depressed and wants more than anything to enjoy your hobbies again without your brain sabotaging the little bit of energy you have, I hope you think of this tale, and we can train ourselves to unfragment our attention once and for all.