I used to hate it. When I was a kid, my parents had often encouraged me to read. They would take me to the library, buy me children’s books and occasionally point at a kid who was burying his nose in a book and suggest I do the same. But why? I asked them. Why should I read if I don’t enjoy it? Reading just isn’t as fun as, you know, playing with Barbie dolls or digging up worms in the garden. “Reading will make you smarter,” they proclaimed. If you read a lot of books, it’ll help you at life.
I’ve been called ‘stupid’ for about a decade — for making trivial mistakes, for being a disappointment, for asking for help — by someone who once cared about me.
And the unimaginable part is, I tried to take it all in. I convinced myself that being told so was a good thing because if anything, it’d be a lesson to not make the same mistake again.