The Habit of Care by Kierra

The Habit of Care by Kierra - February 2026 Scholarship Essay

Humans are social creatures. We exist with each other, to care for each other. It is vital to have people you live your life with, and more importantly live their life too. This means being actively involved in your relationships with people. This means helping to build a community of people who wouldn’t be scared to help a stranger, just because you can. There has been a notion of carelessness, especially in America. Valuing individualism gets confused with needing distance from the world and its people.
“Go about your day, keep to yourself.”
This is very dangerous rhetoric. Carelessness breeds cruelty and ends up allowing it. The easiest and most obvious way to combat this is through empathy. Well, how does one learn empathy? I have found that the best way is through reading.
Reading is the closest we have come to being able to read a person’s mind; Not to get something from them or to make yourself feel better. But to develop understanding as the center of your worldview. It forces you to understand something or someone you maybe would have never even wanted too. It confronts prejudice and combats ignorance. It is the best way for the average person to understand the depths of the human condition! What it means for not just you, but for everyone to be alive. And how your experiences are really not very unique at all, but generally shared with everyone around you. This connects you to every other human you see. Reading is how you internalize this. With how powerful it is, reading is also incredibly easy.
Simply bring a small pocket sized novel with you, any that interests you. Anytime you have a spare couple of minutes, pull out your book instead of your phone. Read 2,3,4 pages and put it back. By the end of the day you probably will have read at least 15 pages. Instead of being on your phone or watching TV for two hours before bed, read for 20 minutes. You will sleep better and more soundly. Your phone is the easy choice, the numb choice. It is why you don’t care; it is why you are desensitized. It is why you may feel less human and more robotic. Reading is one of the most human things you can do.
I have loved reading since I was a little girl. Middle school me could fly through three books in a week. Though as I got older and went into high school, the minutes I spent reading became fewer and fewer. I had less time and more priorities. It became something I did rarely and when I was extremely bored. Over the past year I have gotten back into it. I refused to be passive any longer about something I loved so much (and something I knew had so many benefits). Now I have made it a habit to purposefully set aside time to read.
Since actively making this change I have noticed many things. First of all I am simply more energized in the morning from not being on my phone at night (having replaced it with reading). I am also much more careful with how I speak and which words I use. Every conversation I engage in has significance in some way. I am a better critical thinker, I have a higher vocabulary, I am more empathetic, I am less stressed, and I could go on and on.
Though, everyone knows these positives about reading. We are just too lazy or indifferent or obsessed with our phones. I was not exempt from this, however I refused to take that route any longer. By making reading a daily habit, I not only changed how I spend my time, but how I understand others, and in doing so, how I move through the world.