How do books influence us?


book shelf at book store
With all the books in the world, which will we allow to guide us?

The books we read significantly influence us and who we become.

Books influence us by showing us what is possible in the world around us, they give us examples of how we can live our lives, and they open us up to different possibilities. Books also help us ask the right questions, provide us with knowledge, and live happier lives.

Let’s dig into more details about how books impact us for the better.

Books show us what is possible in the world around us.

Sometimes our lives are a little boring; we go to work or school, do our job, go home, do some chores, go to sleep and repeat the process the next day. 

Sometimes, this type of lifestyle isn’t something we can avoid; we need to work so we can live our lives and keep surviving.

But this is where books can help us as they show us different possibilities from what we might be able to experience in our own lives and circumstances.

There are many different ways to live life; books are great at showing us some of those unique possibilities.

I’ve lived an exciting life by travelling and living in places that most people haven’t seen, but even I’ve had minimal experiences, so there is room to be influenced by the books I’ve read.

It is easy to think that we’ve got the world figured out, and even with a lot of real-life experience, there is still a lot we can learn about possibilities from books.

Books give us an example of how we can be as a person.

We tend to look at the people around us in our real lives and use them as role models or examples of how we can live our own lives. 

At the same time, this is helpful and makes the most sense, as we can believe in what we see with our own eyes.

But this is also limiting in that we can’t control the people around us unless we move away, but that isn’t often easy or something that can be done without lots of effort. In other words, we don’t always have the best examples around us to learn from.

Books give us examples of the good and bad people we can potentially become.

When you read about a great person, you learn from their experience, which can encourage you to be a more fantastic person yourself.

At the same time, when you read about a bad person, you might learn some lessons about the sorts of life choices you should avoid.

We don’t always get to choose the people in our lives, but we can determine the books we read. And if we select the right books, we can get the right sorts of influences in our lives.

The more books we read, the more opened minded we become.

We don’t want to be so open-minded that our brains fall out, but there is certainly a value to being open to possibilities we haven’t previously experienced ourselves.

Most of us spend our lives living in the same sort of places around the same kinds of people, but there is a whole world of experience that we are by necessity missing out on.

Books show us possibilities beyond what we believe is possible, opening us up to more types of experiences.

Books influence us by opening us up to great possibilities than we have or can expect to experience in our day-to-day lives.

Sometimes when we are put in a new situation, we get frightened, which might force us to act in a way that we don’t want to. 

Learning from other people’s experiences in books opens us to a greater range of experiences and allows us to make better decisions about the situations we find ourselves in.

Books make us smarter.

A lot of what we get from books comes from the books we choose to read; if we stick with the same sorts of books, we might not get much out of them.

But if we choose a wide variety of books on different subjects, we learn more about the world and its people, making us a little bit smarter. 

Indeed there are aspects of our personality that we can’t control, but when it comes to what we fill our minds with, that is entirely up to us.

Books make us more intelligent by giving us knowledge about the world we didn’t previously have.

When we read books, they influence our thinking about dealing with the world and people around us. The more knowledge we have, the better equipped we can make good decisions.

Nothing beats real-world experience, but a book can sometimes serve as a valuable substitute when you can’t easily do something for real.

Books lead us to the right questions to ask.

Often we find ourselves living in our own little worlds, so we pick our values and sense of what we should do from what we already know.

But the problem with this perspective is that it is limited and prevents us from reaching our full potential. We can’t possibly know all the things that we could be good at, so we tend to stick with the things we already know.

It is difficult to reach our potential if we don’t know what is possible; luckily, books can help us find our direction.

When it comes to living our best lives, we need to take steps in the right direction. But when we miss out on potential opportunities, we might find ourselves repeating the same things repeatedly.

Books assist us by showing us different ways of being.

Books influence us by broadening our horizons and giving us the chance to try something new.

If you don’t know what questions to ask, books might inspire you in ways that wouldn’t have been possible otherwise.

Books make us happier.

Once again, the types of books we read play a critical role in how those books make us feel.

If you focus on positive books with optimistic outcomes, you will be able to see more positivity in your life. On the other hand, if you read negative books, you will likely see more negativity in the world around you.

Regardless of what you read, the act of reading can provide hours of entertainment or escape from reality. Not to say we should make a habit of avoiding our lives and trying to improve them, but sometimes we need to take a break.

Books can help us be happier by giving us an escape or the motivation we need to make things better for ourselves.

Not all books will make us happier, but we can be sure that the act of reading can be enjoyable and will help us deal with some of the negativity in our lives.

What do you think of reading books? Have you ever been influenced by a book? Was it for the better or for the worse?

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Robert Carr

Over the years, I've learnt to see things in a different light. This website is my place to share those insights and give my unique perspective on living a meaningful life.

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