Reading Tips & Elevator Selfies

Another week passed by and my fingers have never been this eager to write down a blog post. Not that anything exciting had happened the past week, but I’ve continued to enjoy every day to the fullest and that just made me feel alive. Being productive on a daily basis makes me feel alive. It’s like each day I willingly put some effort in that I truly believe will eventually open up a door to my biggest of dreams; that, is my every day motive to staying productive. I make some effort every day even when I can’t see what my end prize is; I’m choosing to have faith in the unknown. I mean, if I make use of my time wisely I can’t end up somewhere unrewarding, right? And at least for the time being, I feel rewarded by the little things in my day.

One rewarding thing in my week was reading. I finally finished reading Wonder by Palacio, and started reading my fourth book of this year called Everything Everything by Nicola Yoon. Wonder is just an amazing and touching book – it’ll always be in my book recommendations for anyone really. Everything Everything though is a book for hopeless romantics who enjoy cliché love stories that make them drunk in love with a book, just like me. But I’m also loving this book because of how beautifully it describes all the feelings that arise when one finds their other half; the first glimpse, the first touch, the first hug, the first kiss, and the many other firsts. It isn’t a page turner like Wonder but I definitely lose myself between the lines when I read it.

It’s really hard to stop yourself from reading a book when you’re lost in its world. In the past, whenever I picked up a book to read, I used to literally put my life on hold for two days until I finished it. I would lock myself in my room and just read; no studying, no phone, and of course no human communication. It wasn’t healthy for either me or my life, so to avoid any book distraction whatsoever I just stopped reading except during summer time. It sucked… not being able to enjoy the beauty of words perfectly put together except every now and then. I had a pile of books that I handpicked myself but I couldn’t risk wasting time over less important things. I missed reading so much last year, and up until my last visit to the book fair, I had no idea how I was going to read over 30 books before the next book fair.

I came up with a system for my reading time, and so far it has been working great for me. I’ve read three books in just two weeks while managing my (uni) life so that’s amazing for me. I haven’t put my life on hold nor have I spent longer than a full hour reading a book yet, so that’s again a good sign that my system is working. If you want to go through books just like you binge-watch TV shows, the first thing you should do is to always have a book in your bag even if you’re certain you wouldn’t have time to read. Because trust me, at one point your book will come in handy when you do tip number two. Read your book whenever you can; whether that’s during the 30 minute bus ride, the 10 minute taxi ride, the 5 minute break between classes, or the moment of silence in a casual gathering. Seriously, every minute you get alone pick up your book and read; there isn’t such thing as not enough time to read a book. Moving on to tip number three; out of ten times you pick up your phone, choose your current read instead. Finally, tip number four is to not take a break between books; always pick another book and read the first page of it after you finish one – most probably you’ll get hooked to it right away. That’s basically how I’m on book number four already, and I haven’t been this excited to read books before; I can already tell that 2017 will mark lots of book reading for me.

Another thing that 2017 is marking for me is elevator selfies. I guess I’ve mentioned somewhere before that I need to take more photos of myself and be less camera shy. So far, I believe I’ve been doing a good job in that; I even have 1 Second A Day application and I haven’t missed one day for a month now. This week though, I shared an elevator selfie on my instagram story and I’m thinking of making it a thing now. Let me know in the comments below if you too are camera shy, or if you have any tips to overcome this fear of mine. I hope your week was as productive as mine, and that you enjoy your weekend. Cheers!