If you’re like most folks, you’re reading this sentence at about the same speed it would take you to read it out loud.
Or maybe you’re a little bit faster.
That’s because of how you learned to read in school. For a teacher to know you can actually read something, they get you to read it out loud.
It’s efficient for them – an easy way to verify your skills.
But it’s not efficient for you.
And it’s not how I read.
Except for when I choose otherwise – like when reading poetry and I want to luxuriate over the sounds of the words – I take things in fast.
I can glance at a sentence and understand it.
It’s not perfect. I could be a lot smoother, faster and more consistent with it with some deliberate practice.
But I never knew this wasn’t a thing everyone could do – not until I read a sentence in the fraction of a second it took my eyes to focus on it.
You could do worse than learning to read by the sight, not by listening to a narrator in your head.
There are plenty of other simple skills like this too.
Like, no one taught you how to properly use your sentience – your ability to see the world as others see it.
And like with reading, it means you’re often slow, clumsy and bad at it.
This isn’t a big deal. It only impacts any part of your life that involves other people. So sales, management, working, creating art, parenting, dating and feeling as though life has meaning.
Things change when you remember Your Story Isn’t About You: