“Loving to read as a strategist”. Episode 23. Reading as Leisure.
Wishing you a beautiful first week of December. Today my parents have accomplished one of the major goals in their holy matrimony, parenthood, and grandparenting. They got married 53 years ago. Given the occasion, it is an honor for me to praise them, and wish them more years to come to celebrate their triumph as a fortunate couple. May God bless them with health, happiness, and more grandchildren to come. I wish to add between 1 to 3 little girls plus, to their grandchildren list soon. Of course, that can happen only once I can find and marry my meant-to-be future boyfriend and then husband (A man I am praying to God to encounter, the man I have been waiting for so long). Congratulations to Mom and Dad!
This picture was taken last year on our way to the beach. Congratulations on this lovely day! Thank you to mom for teaching me to read.
Today I am planning to put in writing my own reflections about the meaning of reading for leisure. I will go straight to the point. I will try to elevate what I have learned during the 52 years of my life about reading. Let´s begin.
The real impact of leisure time on our well-being.
A few months ago, I was writing about leisure from the perspective of the saga “Bees at work”. At that moment I wrote several episodes, in which we were performing strategic reflections about the dichotomy between living to work or working to live. We explained then, that under the current context of our civilization, it is critical to reduce the number of working hours for all citizens. Why? Because the model of 8 hours per day doesn´t leave any leisure time for what is important: the family. Now I am much more convinced of this hypothesis. Under an 8 hours work schedule, and in the context of our Smartphones´skim-reading, it is impossible to maintain a daily time for the long deep reading of books. I also mentioned at that time that the best model for our societies should be to work only 6 hours a day. The more I think about this, the more assured I am in relation to the 6-hour working days that we must procure for our well-being and healthy social development. Look at the slides below, and refresh your mind, please. A day has 24 hours, and if we sleep 8 hours daily, that means we only have 16 hours left to do everything in our quotidian activities and families. If we work 6 hours a day, with dedication and extreme passion to focus (without losing our time on other things), we will be able to gain some extra hours for pursuing reading too.
I encourage you to read the last episodes of the saga Bees at work if you need to explore additional knowledge.
When reading as leisure is a need for moms.
We also have stated in previous episodes, that reading is crucial for moms, or moms-to-be because only a reading mom can procure the perfect role-modeling example for kids. This role modeling must start during pregnancy.
A mommy who reads is worth a precious jewel, a diamond gem, and it is not only because she will be helping her kids, but the impact will roll out to the rest of society. Children who have the support of their mamas as readers are at much more advantage than those kids who will have to learn to read by themselves as orphans of literature. Children without moms who read to them have more difficulties at school, in overcoming this disadvantage. In consequence, any woman who is planning to become a mother is required to read, not to skim-reading on Smartphones, but to read long books. And organize her time to train herself to evolve to the highest level of literacy she can attain. The role of reading moms is so vital for our societies, because kids will always relate to the voice of their mamas who were reading to them, and their capacity for reading fluently will be extended for their whole life. Put attention to how you read aloud… you will immediately recognize the voice of your mama there. I am immensely thankful for my mom´s excellent aid to me. She taught me to read!
Nevertheless, for mothers to be excellent readers, there is a requisite: time. Moms require some extra time for helping their toddlers to read. Our societies should take the decision to leave the option to working moms to only work half a day (when children are between 0 to 6 years old), so they can enjoy extra leisure time to read to their children. In addition, moms need to replenish their own reading to keep their Literacy raising. If possible, all mothers raising children should be at least a Literacy 4, if not Literacy 5 level according to the OECD. That is why reader moms matter.
The reduction of the workload for creating wholesome families.
I encourage you to read all the slides that I prepared for you today. It is a summary of the saga Bees at work’s core message. Only when all public leaders and CEOs of the private sector, globally, can comprehend the importance of leaving the option for well-remunerated part-time jobs to mothers who are growing children, only then we will begin to construct healthy and educated societies. I am convinced (without doing any research but by the experience of observing around me) that the 1% of the best readers in the world (those with a Literacy 5 degree from the OECD), the majority of them had the opportunity to be raised by moms who taught them to read fluently. In addition, the “stay at home” figure of at least half-day working schedules for mothers, will make a difference for babies and toddlers, which will pay off later in their lives. I am swayed by the idea that each mom can multiply a transformation for societies from the inside out, and that is the way we can begin to change our misconduct in society. A child with a reading habit will choose later when he or she will become a teenager, to stay at home or at the library reading, instead of using Smartphones, or going to devious situations where sex, drugs, alcohol, and transgressions may emerge.
To read good literature is to invest accurately in our families and societies.
I truly expect that after this episode, you could be able to understand why is so important to invest time in reading good-quality books that help us to be integral and reasonably good people. Particularly for women, any woman who will act as a role model to children, or who will perform the mom´s model for the infants, is required to be trained to know, practice, and attain the highest literacy level they can. Illiterate societies occur because the mothers of those cultures never took the time to read to their children, or they never cultivated themselves to read over their lifetime. Illiterate societies happen because they have forgotten the significance of reading. It is time to fix that problem, by helping moms to be at home and read to their children, from the conception of the baby until the kids will be able to join the school. Our civilization must organize the job schedules of working moms in such a way as to offer them additional leisure time, so they can read to their children, and they have spare time to read their own adult literature every single day.
Have you thought for a minute that a discerning mother who reaches the Literacy 5 level of reading, could be the beginning of our society’s transformations? What if you sum all the moms on earth doing the same? Amazing…
Announcement: Our next Friday´s publication is “Reading and NAIQIs”
Strategic Music Section.
Music Reading chill-outs
Today´s musical reading counsel starts with our strategic observations about the crucial aspect of discerning between our actions of skim-reading and deep-reading. We have already shown you the considerations about skim-reading, which represents the level of literacy of more than 90% of the global population as internet cosmonauts. On the contrary, deep reading is only practiced by 10% of the global population, and only 1% effectuates reading at the Literacy level 5, OECD standards. Deep reading comes because of years of accumulation of reading good quality books. Books of more than 70,000 words; under the frequency of at least one book per month. A good quality book enfolds vocabulary of top caliber, literary complex figures, clarity of prose, committed engagement, and a suggestive platform for the imagination to materialize.
It must be a book that attracts enough that allows an absorbing connection between the author and the reader from the first pages. A good quality book doesn´t need to be alive as a best-seller, it can be an intellectual hidden treasure that will never reach hundreds of millions of readers, but it is so well written in its own category, that you simply feel content about reading it. These books are recognized as excellent sources from top authors on earth. For deep reading to occur, first a profound enchanting, and well-written book must arrive in your hands.
Our music for reading today is interpreted by the virtuoso pianist Beatrice Rana and London Symphonic Orchestra. The oeuvre is Beethoven’s Piano Concerto No. 5 in E-Flat Major.
See you next Friday 2nd of December with the 24th episode of the saga “Loving to read as a strategist: Reading and NAIQIs”. Thank you for reading to me. Blessings.
“Loving to Read as a Strategist”. Illustrative and non-commercial image. Giphy source from Nazaret Escobedo
Sources of reference are utilized today.
None.
Disclaimer: Illustrations in Watercolor are painted by Eleonora Escalante. Other types of illustrations or videos (which are not mine) are used for educational purposes ONLY. All are used as Illustrative and non-commercial images. Utilized only informatively for the public good. Nevertheless, most of this blog’s pictures, images, or videos are not mine. I do not own any of the lovely photos or images posted unless otherwise stated.
Eleonora Escalante Strategy 