The first time I heard someone compare reading to robbery, I was filled with excitement. He said, reading is a legitimate form of theft, the lowest threshold and highest return way of borrowing life in this world. With the price of a cup of coffee, you can take away a genius's lifetime of thinking; with a few hours, you can read through the pitfalls that others have stepped over in decades. This is not learning; this is cheating. It is the cheapest and most affordable time-travel in human history. If you don't read, your worldview is actually shaped by the few people closest to you. Your level of understanding and your thinking height are just their average. But reading allows you, even if you're in the gutter, to directly converse with emperors from over 2000 years ago, philosophers from more than 100 years ago, and the top experts. You think the pain and confusion you experience are unique and nobody can understand them, but reading will show you that everything you've gone through has been experienced, suffered, and solved by countless smart people before you. And the answers are in the books!