Finding Joy in Math

Finding joy . . . in math? Some of you reading that may wonder how that’s possible. I know math often comes across as a very dry, frustrating subject filled with apparently meaningless rules. But when we look past those rules and really understand math’s purpose, math comes across in a completely different light.

Before we look at how, suppose for a moment that you had never read anything interesting. As far as you knew, books were meaningless knick-knacks people kept on their shelves. In fact, your only experience looking at words in print was in your reading class. Day after day, year after year, you were forced to memorize phonetic, English, and spelling rules yet you were never given a book (or anything interesting) to read. You learned to hate reading as you saw it as a pointless exercise.

Then someone gave you a book to read. Suddenly, the rules you’d been learning had a purpose. You discovered they could help you learn things you never could otherwise, as well as provide hours of enjoyment. You realized you actually enjoyed reading! While learning the rules was still dry at times and sometimes even a challenge, there was now a purpose to those rules—and a reward for persevering.

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