How many among us are frequently visiting our public libraries? Or rather, let me simplify my question: How many books have we read out of mere passion in reading them and not just because we were required to read them, either academically or professionally speaking?
When I was a child, I was never fond of reading books. In fact I think I hated them. I just didn’t have the patience to read them. Even my books related to my studies, I seldom read them. I was never a bookworm – the term which I believe refered to a person who reads all types of books, sort of a general information. Either I get bored in doing so or that I just didn’t like being surrounded with books. I didn’t understand then why there were people who get so passionate at reading at all. I thought it was so lifeless a hobby, period.
Though I must admit that as a child, like any other kid in the world, I had once or twice attempted to write poems when I was being inspired of some authors whose works I came across in some articles or text books I got to read. BUt that was just it. And once in awhile, when I was in high school, I freely went to our local public libraries. I knew at that time, I felt so at home with libraries, seeing a lot of books being written and published from around the world but I didn’t quite dwell on that idea yet. I totall ignored it.
Growing up, I saw my mother having such great fondness in reading books. She’s such a lover of novel books – romance, non-fiction and suspense stories. Geez, literally, she could fill her closet with all the books she had at home and the amazing thing was when I asked her to give me a brief inkling about what a particular book was about, she just had to take a look at the cover page and boom! she could right away tell you what happened to the characters involved in the story. And I gulped and said, ‘wow! that was awesome!’ Imagine, she must have owned a hundred novel books in the house and yet she could still remember the stories and the characters in them. That was how engrossed she was at reading being her passion, so to speak. But still, I didn’t like reading then yet.
It was only in the year 2005 when I started reading books. I guess I got bored out of my daily routine – working, sleeping, working, sleeping, no other extra curricular activities. Funny right? But out of financial restrictions, I enforced myself to focus on merely working. But an angel came across my path. The angel became my bestfriend. I confided to him all my worries and concerns in life. And this angel prompted me an idea of diverting some of my energies and time into reading. And soon, he led me into reading and liking books. And then later, books had kept me company, through my ups and downs in life, along with my angel who had been my number one supporter and fan at the same time. Corny but that’s true, 
. Of course, I was not and still am not, a well-versed reader, so whenever there were terms or ideas or situations sited in the stories I was or am reading, I made it a habit to ask my angel what those were and he graciously explained to me what they meant and in fact, he was patient enough to make me understand the concept. And I sensed he got excited about the idea of me asking him all those questions, too. I could say that being my bestfriend, I could talk anything and everything with my angel under the sun. Oh goodness, I so miss my angel. I have so much to ask him about the books I am currently reading but I hardly see him around.
Reading books had become a nurtured habit within me and it has then become my passion. I can’t imagine a life now without reading them. Mostly for the reason that it connects me to my angel and my best friend but yes, I so love books now. I feel so "me" whenever I am inside a bookstore or in the library. Just yesterday, my sister invited me to visit their public library in Thames, New Zealand. I grabbed the opportunity of borrowing books – they were free, oh what a blessing! I I feel like shouting out of pure joy that I was in fact among the company of wonderful,lovely books – the feeling was like, I am finally home and this time, I’ve acknowledged the feeling and I am loving it. I am even writing books now and I am managing four websites in my own domain. Well, I am simply a writer in my own right, whether or not other people would agree to that. Books, and reading them, helped me travel this far. Books made me see a colorful world and an enjoyable life. I am not a bookworm still because I don’t think I’ll ever have the urge to read books about general information like politics, business, money matters and stuff like that; right now, I am just into novel books and some books of selected authors. But who knows? I haven’t dreamt of liking the books initially either, so maybe in the future I’d be a fan of general information, too? I just have to wait and see where fate would lead me. Maybe my angel will lead me into reading these kinds of books, soon.
My point is, I believe each of us must be a fan of books, of whatever kind may be, in one way or another. We just have to wait for our own time when to like reading them. Although, sometimes, it is enforced liking that makes others love reading books in the end. It is not about how early or late we have started loving books. To me, it is about how many times we have traveled across the globe and meeting a thousand people by merely reading books that which transport us to different worlds, cultures, situations, love affairs, conflicts, challenges and achievements. Books encourage some hope in us and after reading every one of them, we come out having learned something. We are never the same "us" anymore because after reading a book, we have come to understand something, we have encountered some realizations in life and then we became better persons than we were before reading the book.
So I say, please do read books and I hope you get to love reading them, too. Thank God, He shared with us many glimpses of His beautiful world through these books. It’s a wonderful feeling to learn something new everyday. Life, afterall, is an everyday-learning. Have fun with them.
