I love having read
One of the toughest realizations you have to come to on your own is that not everything you do moment to moment is in your own best interest.
Maybe that 10-minute YouTube video about something you didn't care at all about -- until you saw its thumbnail and title thirty seconds ago -- will help you deepen your understanding about some topic... but it most likely won't.
Maybe that all-too-familiar parade of perusing the dreadful headlines from world and local news sites will grant you some useful insight or information... but it most likely won't.
Looking back, the activities that I find have yielded me the most joy and satisfaction couldn't be attained through mass media or any kind of easy-to-consume information bits.
Expertise requires depth. Satisfaction requires effort.
Often, this does not align with what we feel like doing in the moment.
Understanding some abstract concept or some nuanced point -- especially when you don't understand or don't agree a priori -- takes mental energy. However, after you're past that struggle, you've “unlocked” that new truth about the world, or new tool to make sense of things.
You can't be handed truths, as that only creates a dependency with your “truths supplier”. You can be handed evidence, facts and proposed ways of making sense of these.
Experience and conclusions are your own to make, and that's hard.
It's hard because you can't point somewhere else for accountability: you are the only one responsible for what you believe in and for what you end up doing.
Going back to the main thesis, “I love having read”.
In saying that, I realize that it's often hard to love reading. Reading is hard and effortful -- as it should be.
We can only make the desirable behavior easier and within reach, and the undesirable behavior harder and further away from reach.
In the long term, we “vote” on our future selves with every behavioral decision we make on a daily basis.
Some days it's hard to do the “right” thing. Some days it's easy. Maximize the chance for easy days. Count your victories when you do it on a “hard” day. Forgive yourself when you don't do it and keep going.