Originally appeared on LinkedIn, March 1, 2022.
When my father was 13, he got biology book called "The Living Laboratory" which changed the course of his life. As he read, he suddenly came to the realization that he wanted to be a doctor. And he became one.
A similar moment happened for me at age 14, when a friend introduced me to the works of Anne Sexton at a local bookstore. I read Sexton's poems standing up, turning the pages with trembling fingers. I didn't know yet what I would become, but I knew I would never be the same.
The writer Franz Kafka described this experience in a letter to friend in 1904, when he wrote, "If the book we are reading does not wake us, as with a fist hammering on our skulls, then why do we read it? A book should serve as the ax upon the frozen sea inside us."
I have spent my life reading, escaping into the worlds and ideas of others, and each time I'm searching for that ax to jolt me awake once more. Books are powerful. They have the power to change who we are and the way we think. They also serve as life buoys, to bring us comfort or help us realize our dreams, articulating the thoughts or ideas that we are unable to verbalize ourselves. The poet and essayist Mary Oliver once wrote, "I read the way a person might swim, to save his or her life." I feel this, deeply. Books have saved my life, more than once. They have the power to change who we are and the way we think. They help us cope. They open our eyes to new perspectives.
March is National Reading Month, and in the spirit of celebrating the written word, I urge you to take a break from phones and tablets and digital media platforms. Grab a book. Read. Climb into the words and stories and thoughts of others. Find the ones that break you, and then build you up again anew.
Find YOUR ax.
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