“Never trust anyone who has not brought a book with them.”― Lemony Snicket, Horseradish: Bitter Truths You Can’t Avoid

You know the feeling?

One of my favorite ways to spend a quiet evening is to read on my Kindle. 

You know the feeling? 

You unwrap a cool facemask from a little plastic bag, breathe in the warm smell of hot herbal tea from your favorite mug, and slip into clean sheets and soft pajamas to then cuddle up with a good book until you turn out the lights. 

This, for me, is an ideal evening, and I have fought hard against the constant pressure of all the other things I could be doing in that time instead. 

Why? Because for me, if I’m too busy to read, I’m just too busy, period. 

While I flit between many different books, I find a special comfort and joy from reading fiction, especially when school requires me to already read other more technical materials. 

But it’s not just about intellectual relief- it’s also emotional. By reading fiction, I get to step into the minds and lives of other people, to witness their heartbreak and victories and know that if it’s possible for them to prevail, it’s also possible for me. 

Right now, I’m reading Min Jin Lee’s Pachinko, which I highly recommend if you like historical fiction and/or K-dramas.  

Me reading on my Kindle with a face mask from 7/11

Plot twist!

However, I’m also an aspiring scientist, eager to get involved in, and learn about, research in fields like materials science and geochemistry. When I have a few minutes to spare, you can even find me on Datacamp, probably trying to master AI before it masters me. 

These aren’t contradictory facts, nor should they be, but I find myself constantly frustrated with the notion that the only books that help you grow as a person are in the personal development section of Barnes & Noble. 

If you want to get ahead in your career, be more content in your personal life, and generally be a better citizen of the world, fiction helps too. In fact, it helps a lot.

Today, I want to tell you why. 

#1: People with hobbies go farther.

There’s a myth I want to bust before anything else, and it’s this: that STEM is not for “creatives”.

I know why this myth exists. People sometimes assume that if you are good at math and/or spend most of your time coding, in a lab, or losing sleep on AutoCAD, that you won’t also be an incredible painter, ballet dancer, poet, or professional trumpet player. 

And maybe for a lot of people in STEM, that’s the case, but I have also personally encountered many exceptions. 

In fact, research by Michele and Robert Root-Bernstein from Michigan State University even supports this. They looked at 773 Nobel Laureates across all fields of academia, and found that among the most successful thinkers, one of the common traits is that they have hobbies outside their work. 

For many, this included creative hobbies like playing an instrument or writing poetry. 

Now, if you don’t know what your quirky hobby might be, I’ll give you a good place to start: pick up a book. 

No, not Atomic Habits or 4 Hour Workweek, for crying out loud. 

Pick up something obscure but cool, intriguing but a little less well-known. Think like you were a little kid, and pick up a book that will just bring you untapped joy to read. 

Call it a “guilty pleasure” if you want. I call it “food for the soul”.

#2: Reading builds cognitive endurance.

Okay, I’m going to be your crunchy-granola aunt for a second, and tell you to get off the dang Instabook. 

Yes, I know you have to check the seventeen reels of cat memes your cousin sent you in the past hour, and that you have to respond to the reel your mom just sent about “Top 4 Study Tips For College Students”. 

I know. I get it. People are counting on you. Life is hard. 

But all that dutiful scrolling you are doing to keep sending your friends the funniest reels in all the land is taking a toll on your ability to actually focus.

My innovative solution is tried and tested, and surprisingly, it is not to just cold-turkey delete all your accounts and throw your phone into a lake. 

Now that you’ve breathed your sigh of relief, what is my solution, anyway?

Read.

Friend, there is no way to escape social media. 

I know because like you, I have grown up with its cold ubiquitous eyes all around me too. So if you don’t want to quit, don’t. 

Try this challenge that I started about a year ago instead: each week, read your social media screen time. 

If it was 10 hours, challenge yourself to read 10 hours that week. If it was 7 hours, try reading an hour daily for a week. 

Spoiler: if you do this for long enough, like I did, you will find your screen time gradually falling to a less existentially-terrifying number. 

It will go from 14 to 10 to 4 to 3. 

And guess what? 

By then, you might actually find yourself at peace when you have to sit still for a few hours to review some journals, do a coding spring, or answer the emails piling up in your inbox.

#3: Reading fiction restores your sense of wonder.

Let’s face it, when you’re a kid, it’s easy to get excited. 

You get excited for lunchtime, for art class, for recess, for PE. Then, when you get home, you get excited to play with your toys and have some ice cream after dinner. 

When it’s Friday, you get excited for the weekend. When it’s Christmas, you get excited for, well, everything. If you go to the park and find a worm wriggling around the dirt, you get excited because you found a worm wriggling around in the dirt and decided he was named Gary.

The thing is, growing up can make us less excited. It can dull that beautiful sense of childlike wonder with a long list of explanations and crushed dreams. 

Then, we learn to make excuses: “I’m not good at math”, “I’m not sporty”, “I’m an awful cook”, “I just can’t draw.”

What I want to know is what happened to that little kid inside of you who did stupid, random stuff just because it was cool and it was fun, and really, deep down, nobody else knew what they were doing either. 

If you’re in STEM, I know there is a little kid inside you whose eyes grew wide when hearing an astronaut talk about space, or who yearned to make something explode in chemistry class.

For me, the way to bring that kid back is by reading fiction. 

Why?

Because when you read fiction, nothing is off the table. 

You can revel in the ridiculous and savor the stupid. It doesn’t have to be intellectual or technical, or about meeting an ever-increasing standard for “good enough”. 

You get to find something cool and exciting that no one else understands. 

What a gift.

Buy the book.

I once heard Ramit Sethi, author of I Will Teach You To Be Rich, talk about his rule when it comes to buying books. It was simple: if you’re thinking of buying it, do. 

Why?

Because the ROI of reading a book is way more valuable than the $20 it might cost to buy it. 

So if you find yourself wandering through a bookstore, don’t stop at the personal development section. 

Wander into the fiction aisles too…you may just strike gold. 

Thought To Action 

1. Upgrade Your Inputs: This week, read one thing that feels above your level—a book, essay, or paper that makes you slow down. Growth hides in friction.
2. Curate Your Feed: Audit your digital spaces—unfollow three accounts that shrink your thinking and replace them with three that expand it.
3. Start a “Curiosity Thread”: Pick one question that won’t leave you alone and spend 15 minutes a day chasing it down. (Here’s how to build a personal learning ritual).
4. Try AI as a Reading Companion: Feed a dense article into an AI tool and ask it to explain it five ways—like a teacher, a friend, a skeptic, a poet, and a child. Notice what each version unlocks.
5. Share a Synthesis: Write a one-paragraph reflection and post it publicly or in your notes—learning cements when shared.

Sources

Cima, Rosie. “The Correlation between Arts and Crafts and a Nobel Prize.” Priceonomics, 11 Sept. 2015, priceonomics.com/the-correlation-between-arts-and-crafts-and-a/. Accessed 12 Oct. 2025.

Varner, Grant. “The Side Hustle of the Nobel Laureates.” Grantvarner.com, Grant Varner, 3 Mar. 2025, www.grantvarner.com/p/the-side-projects-of-nobel-laureates. Accessed 12 Oct. 2025.

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