5 Jan 2025

My number one goal this year is to spend less time on my phone.  Yes, I may be developing perimenopause brain, but my phone consumption definitely isn't helping matters.  As a teen, I could spend the weekend reading non-stop, pausing for the call of nature and food consumption (and just a little sleep).  Now I struggle to sit still for 5 minutes at a time.  My TBR grows wilder by the day and the ticking clock of midlife is echoing in my ears.  The certain knowledge that I will never be able to read everything that I want will sometimes overwhelm me to the point I'm short of breath, but instead of grabbing a paperback, I just doomscroll for another few hours.

So my first goal - fight the screen zombie me - blends nicely into my second goal.  And it's not to read more, but to read better.  To read deeper, to broaden my mind, to become a better me.

The urge to read faster is definitely there.  Reading sprints, 2x speed on audiobooks, years of 100+ Goodreads challenges.  Reading went from my deepest pleasure to another metric I judged myself by, and worse, to judge others by.  The average American reads about 12 books a year (according to scrolling through random Google results on the question).  Seeing statistics like that, I mentally preen and think about how much better I am than those average readers.

When did reading become a contest?

Okay, so I am from the BookIt generation, so reading as a competition was pretty much hardwired in me as an elementary student.  But when I got my BA degree and officially didn't have to read to please anyone but myself, I still found my mind consumed with, well, consumption.

So I'm slowing down.  Taking a breath, decluttering my shelves, re-thinking my endless Hoopla and Libby wishlists, and trying to focus on books that spark excitement and interest.  

So it's time to brew a cup of chamomile, grab a paperback, and sit back and read.