My taste for reading began to develop during my childhood. I had a palate for fantasy, science-fiction, and history. Hours upon hours of my day were dedicated to turning pages, often late into the night. Most books were easy to digest, even the ones that were years beyond my grade level. I devoured a book a week, simply because I could.
The more I consumed, the hungrier I became. My curiosity about the world could not be satiated. I wanted to learn as much as I could. I craved to visit to foreign lands and traverse through time itself.
But I must confess: much to the dismay of my childhood self, my reading habits have slowed down over the years. As I grew older and needed to shoulder more responsibility, it became harder to read at such a rapid pace. Burnout ate away at the little free time that I had left. Slowly, it became easier to replace a handful of pages with a screen of infinite entertainment.
Despite this, I still try to open a book when I can. Reading has introduced me to perspectives about life I would never have obtained otherwise. It has made me a better writer and communicator. Fiction, in particular, has gifted me with the abilities to empathize and interpret implicit messages. Reading instilled in me a hunger for more.
My adolescent adventures into literature left me with a disposition for yearning. I daydreamed often. I had lofty aspirations. I was overly ambitious in my pursuits for greatness, like the protagonists of the stories I had once devoured. But slowly, over the course of many years, the future I once reached for slowly turned sour, replaced by a pre-packaged version of the person I was expected to be.
I had been taken to an all-you-can-eat buffet and was expected to inhale as much food as my stomach would fit to minimize cost. I was expected to study hard, be as busy as possible, and pour all my time and energy into chasing a definition of success that I wasn’t even hungry for. I was told that people and experiences that were in my life already wouldn’t be enough to satiate my appetite. What was already on my plate was never enough, no matter how full I already was.
I ate the bait. I loaded my schedule with as many advanced courses as I could and studied every night until I could barely stay awake. I practiced my instrument until my fingers calloused and I could hear repertoire in my sleep. I loathed my peers who had jobs and cars and more friends than I did, because no matter how exhausted I already was, I told myself that I was going to get left behind.
My entire life, I had been taught to play zero-sum games; so long as I worked hard and tried my best, my gain would be balanced by the loss of another. But in reality, I felt that it was the other way around. Everyone else could chase their dreams except for me. The intrinsic desire I once cultivated had been swallowed whole by my obsession.
I wanted to win, I wanted to make it out on top,
In the end, my plate was left unfinished.