My experience a month in!
When I was in elementary school, the library was practically my second home. Each week, I walked in to return the 10 books I had gotten a few days prior and walked out with 10 new ones. I could’ve spent hours running my hands over the plastic-sealed covers, deciding what fictional world I was going to enter next—if, of course, it hadn’t been for my parents waiting patiently for me to finish up. An avid reader since I was very young, I’ve always been fascinated by how deeply something as simple as words can affect individuals.Â
I lived vicariously through the fictional characters drawn up in the heads of my favorite authors. The worlds they created were ones I couldn’t wait to jump into. Reading was more than just a passion of mine, it was an outlet.
But in recent years, I’ve found myself sacrificing reading for school assignments or other obligations. The older I became, the less time I had for the thing I loved the most, which was extremely disheartening.Â
Because of this, I entered 2023 with a goal: I was going to read a new book every week for the entirety of the year.Â
Now, was this a very ambitious goal for me to set while home on winter break with considerably more free time than I would have upon returning to school? Yes. But, has it also been an amazing way for me to push—no, shove—myself back into reading consistently? Also yes!Â
I knew going into this challenge that the biggest obstacle I would face was time management—more specifically, fitting in time to read between my job, my stacked class schedule and my outside club commitments. At first, I was concerned that I was setting myself up to fail; after all, I couldn’t magically create more hours in the day.Â
But I quickly realized how much time I could utilize if I simply traded the minutes I spent aimlessly scrolling through my phone for reading. I could gain so much more from reading a new novel for 30 minutes before bed than I could from watching Netflix. Not to mention, I was actually tired before bed rather than wide awake from staring at a screen.Â
Making this little change in my routine has altered so much for me already, even just a month into this challenge. I’ve already completed books that I’ve been yearning to read for months but couldn’t find the time to! Taylor Jenkin Reid’s Daisy Jones and the Six, for example, had been taking up far too much space in my mind as of late, but because of this goal, I was able to start off my challenge with its completion!
Reading has always provided me with joy, comfort and familiarity. I don’t think I was fully aware of how badly I missed reading before I attempted to fulfill this New Year’s resolution. As of right now, I’m certainly glad I’ve been slowly implementing it back into my day-to-day life.
If all goes to plan, I’ll be 52 books further into my lifetime to-read list, but as of right now, I’m just focusing on slowly making time for the hobby I’ve always loved the most.Â