I want to share a story with you on why reading makes you a better person.
“I’ve read a lot of books, but I’ve forgotten most of them. So what is the purpose of reading?”
This was the question that a pupil once asked his Master.
The Master at that moment did not answer.
After a few days, however, while he and the young pupil were sitting by a river, he said he was thirsty and asked the boy to get him water using an old bucket all dirty that was there on the ground.
The pupil flinched, as he knew it was a request without any logic.
However, he could not contradict his Master, and taking the bucket, he began to accomplish this absurd task. Every time he immersed the bucket in the river to pull up water to take to his Master, he could not take even one single step towards him that the bucket was empty.
He tried and tried again dozens of times, but no matter how hard he tried to run faster from the shore to his Master, the water kept passing through all the holes in the bucket and got lost along the way.
Exhausted, he sat down beside the Master and said:
“I can’t catch water with that bucket. Forgive me Master, it is impossible and I have failed in my task.”
“No,” replied the old man, smiling, “you didn’t fail. Look at the bucket now. Thanks to the water that filtered from the holes, it’s clean and looks new.”
“When you read books,” continued the old Master, “you are like that bucket, and the books are like the water of the river.”
“It doesn’t matter if you can’t remember all the books you read. The books with their ideas, emotions, feelings, and knowledge, that you will find among the pages, will cleanse your mind and your spirit, and make you a better and renewed person. That’s the purpose of reading.”