The Power of Reading

Apart from giving my personal review on movies I watched, I do hope to share about nice books I ever read before. Just to share as I always believe that life means nothing if we don't share with others. To me, sharing is vital, important and a key factor to success in the future. We can no longer keep the information exclusively for us without sharing with others. The concept of sharing information is not only applied during our study years but it is a concept that relevant forever.

Well, what I want to share here is about reading. Since I was young, my parents encouraged me to read a lot and they always bought me storybooks for me to read. With this, I did not have chance to go out and wasting my time. What to do as both of my parents are in the education line though they are now no longer in the service. It is not a matter of what your parents do for living but how they see the future. In my case, I am quite lucky because my parents at least educate me about the good side of reading and at the same time prepared the reading materials.

Take English as the subject to discuss here. When the government introduced teaching Science and Mathematics in English in our education system, everyone commented that this move will kill the future of Malay students and they keep on arguing whether this move can be achieved or not. But what they missed out is the question of how to achieve instead of other arguments. What made me so sad is not about the arguments but those people who argue. Forget about it, as this is not my focusing point. I am far away from my initial intention for this posting.

Everyone now talks about the power of having information in hand and whether we agree or not, most of the reading materials (major source of information) are written in English; the lingua franca. Instead of wasting efforts to translate those materials in our mother tongue, it is better to improve and master the language; English. I do not agree that by mastering English and using the language in our daily life will turn us to be less patriotic. Bahasa Melayu is still has its pride, dignity and sovereignty as long as we still preserve it.

One way to master this lingua franca is by reading more in the language. Everything starts from zero but the longer we postpone to take the move, the longer we will be left behind. So, I would strongly encourage myself and anyone who read this article to read more in English. We can start by reading something light and something we have interest in. For example, reading magazines on entertainment, sports, cooking etc. or even the daily newspaper. It is better for us to start with something small rather than nothing. We can join as many courses as we want and spend a lot of money for that but if we do not read and try to improve it, we will never master the language.

Bear in mind that information is the critical success factor in this millennium and the source of information mostly comes from English. So, better take a step forward by making reading as our habit rather than keep on waiting to see people passing by us and leave us behind as incompetent persons.