I recently saw a social media post about someone having just completed their goal of reading 40 books this year. It got me to thinking… hey, maybe I could do that. I don’t mean actually read-read them — at my slow pace? No chance — but get through 40 readable books plus audiobooks in a year? Maybe even 50? Yeah? Probably?
I’ve been mulling over whether or not to take on the challenge for myself and as of right now, I’m… undecided on it. I know I’ve got to make a call in the next couple of days, but I keep going back and forth about the pros and cons.
Here’s the thing: I read (or as of late, listen to books, if time is tight) for pleasure. That’s the whole reason behind my having a category of what I’ve started and then put back down in my monthly What I Read entries. If I’m not enjoying what I’m reading, I stop it and move onto something I’ll hopefully enjoy more.
So my concern is if I take on a challenge to read more, it’ll be more about getting my numbers higher and less about whether or not I actually wanted to read (/listen to) that material. Which seems counter-intuitive to reading for pleasure.
I mean, look at what I read this month. Six books done? And it would’ve been at least another full one if I had just knuckled down and got through all of one more instead of eating up time trying and rejecting any at all.
I’m pretty happy just looking at that stat alone and saying that yeah, if I can keep up that pace — and there was plenty of other stuff I did this month that wasn’t reading/listening to books, so if I went out of my way to get through even more — then yeah, I can very clearly get through 40 or 50 next year, even keeping some wiggle room to be a bit finicky about what I finish. And given that, do I even need to set the challenge for myself?
Having said that, it’s still an appealing notion to set a personal goal for the year and actually meet it. New Year’s Resolutions, as this challenge would basically be, so often fall by the wayside. If I set the bar as high as getting through 50 books for the year and end up finishing that number, let alone in September or October, I’d be pretty chuffed.
Risking enjoying less to finish more, but for a payoff of meeting a pretty lofty goal I’ve never set for myself before?
Decisions, decisions…