Hello, my frozen chosens!
‘Tis the season for seeing more goals on Goodreads than an entire soccer season.
I haven’t set a reading goal since 2020 — and the past three years have been the most enjoyable reading experience of my life.
In 2020, I read my all-time high of 56 books. Reading is a good escape when you’re trapped in your home avoiding a plague.
I didn’t feel super accomplished when I finished my 56th book. I didn’t feel smarter. And I didn’t even have a great time. I just felt like I exhaustively earned a number that carries an unnecessary amount of social cred.
Realizing my motivation was to reach a number, I quit reading goals cold turkey on January 1st, 2021. I’ve now been three years sober from trying to impress anyone by turning pages.
If you’re one of the 15% of Americans who say reading more is their New Year’s resolution, then here are two reasons you should reconsider.
Because for hobbies, pleasure is more important than productivity
When we start attaching numbers to our hobbies, we’re in danger of losing our loves to the Efficiency Monster.
The Efficiency Monster is the temptress who makes us believe we have to optimize all things to make the most of them.
But we read for pleasure and growth — two goals that speed doesn’t help.
Things with wheels are the only things more enjoyable the faster you go. News flash: Books don’t have wheels.
As far as growth, there’s a pace for it. It’s plant pace.
Lao Tzu said, “Nature does not hurry, yet everything is accomplished.”
Plants aren’t in a hurry to grow. Even if they were, they couldn’t do anything about it. Accessing more water faster could be more harmful than helpful.
Personal growth from reading comes similarly to how Hemingway described bankruptcy, “gradually, then suddenly.”
“When you practice reading, and you work at a text, it can only give you what you put into it.” — Zadie Smith
Because page count shouldn’t be a core influence of your book choice
“Why would I read that dense 500-page book when I could read two different books in half the amount of time?” — Me in 2020
My obsession with reading more books faster influenced which books I chose to read. Dickens? Ain’t nobody got time fo’ dat.
Again, we read for pleasure and growth. But putting a goal number to your reading is a good way to avoid both of those objectives. Not just because of the pace of your reading, but because of the books it’ll lead you away from.
Books rich with insights and remarkable writing are usually more dense than mainstream page-turners. Because world-building, character arcs, and interweaving plots take time.
A goal number won’t guide you to history’s best writers like Dickens, Steinbeck, and Austen because their books are long and slow. But these are the writings surviving mankind’s test of time. They’re worth yours.
“The person, be it gentleman or lady, who has not pleasure in a good novel, must be intolerably stupid.” — Jane Austen
✌️
— Luke
P.S. I do have two caveats to setting reading goals.
If you’re a goal-oriented person, but not a reader and want to be, then maybe set a goal to get you started. But once you’ve built the habit and desire to read, drop that goal like a bride’s booty on the dance floor.
I think there are much more fun and effective goals than numbers. For example, my brother once set a goal to only read his favorite author for an entire year. Maybe you could read more Black authors or poetry or books at least 50 years old. Get creative and have fun!
P.P.S. Here’s content I’ve enjoyed lately. Imo it’s one of the best lists in a while — with 10(!) pieces of content.
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