I have watched the avid outdoorsman, the fisherman, come slowly drifting by. He goes by morning after morning, day after day, always at the same time, always casting into the same locations. He is patiently waiting for the big one, waiting for that hard strike, that long battle that will land him his prize.
I do not fish, but I do read, and I find them similar. The avid reader takes in book after book, day after day, searching each one, looking carefully for those few but important ideas. Four hundred pages—or eight hundred—is a small price to pay for an idea. It is a small price to pay for knowledge that leads to application that leads to life change.
Sometimes you need to do a lot of reading to come away with one really good idea. Some books yield nothing but nonsense; some yield nothing but ideas you have come across a thousands times before. But then, at last, you find that one that delivers. There is such joy in it. Such reward.
The fisherman is rewarded when at last he has his fish. He takes a picture of it, weights it, takes it home, has it mounted, and displays it for the world to see. The reader is rewarded when at last he has his idea. He takes that idea, he thinks about it, he talks about it, he weighs and considers it, and he integrates it into his life.
No wonder, then, that we love to read. We read to discover that prize. We read to learn, and we read to live.
