You know who was probably a great reader? Aristotle. For he knew:
“The whole is greater than the sum of its parts.”
Reading is much like investing: If you play it right, you get much more out of it than you put in.
The real value of reading—books, articles, posts on places like Medium, Quora, and this blog—doesn’t lie in each individual piece’s effect on you, but in who you become as a result of the total time you spend.
Sometimes, you put money into a stock and it instantly takes off. You remember those best. Like I remember a 78-year old’s lesson to never punish people for behaving according to their age. I instantly tried putting this into practice and it’s stuck with me ever since.
But the best investors are never worried about any individual stock. They continue to invest for a long time and eventually, they end up with a huge return. A return they never could have foreseen looking at each stock on its own.
I might not remember your fantastic, well-written post, but maybe that day, I’ll go out of my way to be nice to someone, stand up for what’s right or overcome a small fear of mine.
It’s not just certain pieces of reading that change my life. It’s all of them.
“The whole is greater than the sum of its parts.” – Aristotle
This is what turns us from humans into people. Sure, beneath it all there’s chemistry and biology, but it’s the moments we forget that – the moments we forget ourselves – that really make us feel alive.
Whatever the reason you’re here, thank you for reading.
Thank you for being part of something inexplicable. Something bigger.
Thank you for doing what Aristotle would have done.
Thank you for investing your time in reading, writing, learning, and sharing with all of us.
