Excuse #04: "I don't like to read. I think it's a waste of time"
Oh shit, nothing to do about that, right? If you don't like it, you don't like it. And let me guess from that statement that you mean reading fiction, is that it? They are only stories anyway. I'm sure one can live a complete lifetime without hearing, reading or having anything to do with stories. They are not serious and I am sure you prefer spending your time doing important things, rather than stew in front of your entertainment. There is no value to fiction beside pure entertainment. So you think.
I am going to cut straight to the heart of the argument and tell you this. You need fiction. You need perspective to understand and draw knowledge from what's happening to you. When you were still sitting on the school benches, you needed fiction to create distance and understand. A mathematical problem makes a lot more sense when people are implicated. 3-2=X is a lot more abstract that : "You bought three apples, ate two of them during your lunch break. How many do you have left?" Well, novels, short stories and other different form of fiction serves the same purpose. Only the problems are different and more difficult to answer than the elaboration of a lunch strategy.
Every novel is trying to answer a question. The Great Gatsby is trying to situate the right place of love, longing and other "pure" feelings after achieving wealth and success. Like, what is there to wish, to dream about after you're a millionaire? Does your fortune defines you? Will you sound ridiculous to still want and desire if you have everything others wish for? Fitzgerald's fiction is pretty loaded with those questions. Another example is The Count Of Monte Cristo. It tries to answer this question: When everything fails you. You lose your status, your freedom and the love of your life. How do you get back from there, when you're a forgotten body inside of a prison. Alexandre Dumas establish a scary logic plan for Edmond Dantès to come back from almost nothingness into this angry and splendid literary specimen.
Yes, those are difficult question. I understand that some of you don't like to question yourselves. But there are a lot of answers and inspiration to draw from literature, if you're ready to do the necessary work to dig them out. So reading is not a waste of time. Especially not reading fiction. It's an art form that is begging to materialize itself in real life. Many readers will draw inspiration from books and will try to apply changes to their lives based on a character they have admiration for. Tyler Durdren, the creation of Chuck Palahniuk has influenced so many young males that there is now over three thousand Tyler Durdens in the world. A bit excessive, yes. But is it only a story now? If you still think it is, look around you and see all the young men who found the answer to their existential dread by socking each other in the face on a daily basis in boxing and mixed martial arts club around the world. If you don't read, I guess they are only stories. If you do, stories are the string that piece life up together.