By: Larz Jeter
Read all posts by Larz
Today (11/13/07) a fellow teammate asked me what I would consider a “crazy” question. Before practice began I was reading a booked title The 48 Laws of Power by Robert Greene. Marcus Hardy approached and asked, “Are you reading this for class or for leisure?” I responded “for leisure” and in his shock he asked, “Why do you read for Leisure!” The basis of my answer comes from a rap verse by a poetic rapper named Nas (Nasir Jones). “If you want to hide something from a [African American] put it in a book.”
At that time I heard Nas’s quote I was a teenager of African American decent and that quote stuck out to me. I was too young to understand fully what that meant. I look back at my adolescent years and realized I never read a whole book for leisure or for class until my junior year in high school. I made it through school by reading the first chapter and cheating the rest of the way like many of my peers at the time. There would be one or two people who actually did read and we look for them to tell us what it was about. On a small scale I was living proof of his quote. Information was out there in front of me but I didn’t want it. You could have put a million dollars in those books but I would have never found it. It would have been the best hiding spot.
Nas’s quote reminded me of a conversation I had with my father when I was a pre-teen. I was not doing well in middle school, predominantly because wasn’t reading. My dad had disciplined me in many ways for a stretch period of time, but I was rebellious and wouldn’t read. I just didn’t like to read. He was at a lost for what to do with me and my poor reading habits. He asked me, “When do you plan on reading?” I didn’t have an answer for him but I knew he would not let me get away with saying nothing so I said in “11th grade”. The basis for that answer was because I felt that everybody in high school had to read and me being slow, I would not start until then. (Yes, my young mind really put all those factors in the mix.)
I remembered that moment while I was in my junior year at Parkway North West High School. That was the first year I read a book. I read the book “Flyy Girl” by Omar Tyree, yes, the whole book! Took me a week but I was into it. All the girls were reading it and with the mix of hormones and puberty, I was trying to find out what girls liked so I could present myself in the best manor possible to impress them.
Nas’s statement along with my father’s question has lived with me since those adolescent years and I don’t want anything hidden from me. I currently read to gain knowledge for personal growth. Recently I have read The Secret by Rhonda Byrne, Time Management by Richard Walsh, and The Art of War by Sun Tzu. The books I read are usually prescribed to me by influential people in my life. I am currently reading The 48 Laws of Power by Robert Greene. After finishing I plan to read The 33 Strategies of War by Robert Greene and The 21 Irrefutable Laws of Leadership by John C. Maxwell.
I know many are looking at the title of my books and thinking “he must be starting a war soon, watch out”. Don’t fear me in that manor; they are just leadership books from a war generals view point. I am a docile creature whose goal in life is to end world poverty. I understand that with that goal I will need to learn both in a formal educational structure (college) and informally (books, seminars, elders wisdom).
So to answer my teammates question in a couple simple sentences….
My success depends on the hidden information that books provide me. I read for leisure because college books are not the only form of knowledge that is provided in this world. And like the TV commercial states, “Reading is Fundamental”.
December 29th, 2009 at 7:55 pm
I read for pleasure a lot. I read Fly Girls in middle school like three times. My friends and I were so hooked on the book that we ripped it into three “equal” parts so that we would all be reading it and could rotate each section as we completed it…Only things is someone got mad when she were done a part and someone else wasn’t. I am considering reading from your book list above I may enhance my leadership qualities.