Okay, so I’ll admit, I still have yet to read ‘Atomic Habits’ by James Clear, but I get the gist of it. We of course should be making goals, but it’s systems that matter — systems in place that get you to your goals, and then beyond them. Because what happens after you run that marathon or write that book? The point is to keep running and to keep writing, and in my case, it’s to keep reading.
I didn’t read 52 books this year. But I did read 44 books. And to me, that’s better than none. I’ve learned an important lesson, and it’s that I cannot set a goal and not set up a system in order to achieve that goal — I must do both. So it’s: read 52 books this year, and to do that, read 50 pages every weekday, and for however long my heart desires on the weekend. It’s: delete Tik Tok and read instead whenever I get the cue or urge.
I love reading and it’s not something I should need to push myself to do. So it’s also a change of how I think about reading. Instead of: I must read 50 pages a day, it’s: make time to be able to read 50 pages a day (because I love reading!!!). It is not a chore, it’s something that allows me to be mindful and present, to access a world only I’m in for the moment, to hear about someone else’s perspective.
I’m proud I’ve read 44 books this year, and I’m glad I chose the ones I did. This upcoming year, I’ll still set a number, but it will be a soft number. I’ll also be more mindful about which books I choose — if I am lacking time or energy, I at least want to choose books I’ll be glad I chose. Ones that give me energy, make me hopeful. No more climate doom or sad poetry, although I do love my sad poetry. My next climate apocalypse books will be about climate activism, what can be done, about inspiring people who have actually made a difference. My new reading goal will be 52 books again, and if I don’t hit it, hopefully I’ll have at least read enough to live a happy and mindful year.
I’ve also buried the lede, the lede being: this year I got a new job and moved states. I also changed my name and got a blonde mullet. And no, I’m surprisingly not running away from anything. I just needed a change. I felt my life fading each and every day. I’ll attribute part of that to the pandemic of course, but a lot of it was work and my priorities in life. But that’s not what this post is about.
This post is about how although I didn’t hit my goal of 52 books, I did a lot. I traveled to Chicago, Tampa (twice!), Philadelphia, and went back and forth from Pittsburgh to DC about a million times. I started selling my art at coffee shops! I started taking myself more seriously with my art by taking classes and purchasing supplies to continue to do this work. And now, I’m embarking on a journey of writing my very first book. It’ll be a whale, but I’m down to take it on.
So I’ll keep reading (why would I ever stop?) and keep in mind that knowledge is not about numbers or pages of books. It’s about quality! Here’s to continuing to read and staying curious in 2022!
And now, for all of the books I did read in 2021, in the order I read them in:
Odes — Sharon Olds ⭐️⭐️⭐️
Middle Earth — Henri Cole ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
Such a Fun Age — Kiley Reid ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
Untamed — Glennon Doyle ⭐️⭐️⭐️
Outlawed — Anna North ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
Detransition, Baby — Torrey Peters ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
Love is Not Constantly Wondering if You Are Making the Biggest Mistake of Your Life — Anonymous ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
The Woman in the Purple Skirt — Natsuko Imamura with Lucy North (Translator) ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
Red at the Bone — Jacqueline Woodson ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
Can’t Even: How Millennials Became the Burnout Generation — Anne Helen Petersen ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
Cast Away: Poems for Our Time — Naomi Shihab Nye ⭐️⭐️⭐️
My Art is Killing Me and Other Poems — Amber Dawn ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
Rain Scald: Poems — Tracey M. Atsitty ⭐️⭐️⭐️
The Purple Palace & other poems — Shayna Klee ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
No One is Talking about This — Patricia Lockwood ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
What is Amazing — Heather Christle ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
Trick Mirror: Reflections on Self-Delusion ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
Life of the Party: Poems — Olivia Gatwood ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
I’ll Fly Away — Rudy Fransisco ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
How to Do Nothing: Resisting the Attention Economy — Jenny Odell ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
God I Feel Modern Tonight: Poems from a Gal about Town — Catherine Cohen ⭐️⭐️⭐️
Non-Places: Introduction to an Anthropology of Supermodernity ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
The Four Agreements: A Practical Guide to Personal Freedom ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
Tokyo Ueno Station — Yu Miri with Morgan Giles (Translator) ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
Poems for the End of the World — Katie Wismer ⭐️⭐️
The Hill We Climb: An Inaugural Poem for the Country — Amanda Gorman ⭐️⭐️⭐️
Something Bright, Then Holes — Maggie Nelson ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
Play it As it Lays — Joan Didion ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
Everyone Knows Your Mother is a Witch — Rivka Galchen ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
The New Me — Halle Butler ⭐️⭐️⭐️
The Sun Down Motel — Simone St. James ⭐️⭐️⭐️
The Broken Girls — Simone St. James ⭐️⭐️⭐️
Beautiful World, Where Are You — Sally Rooney ⭐️⭐️⭐️
Before the Coffee Gets Cold: Tales from the Cafe — Toshikazu Kawaguchi ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
The Gratitude Diaries — Janice Kaplan ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
A Fortune for Your Disaster — Hanif Abdurraquib ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
I Hope This Finds You Well: Poems — Kate Baer ⭐️⭐️⭐️
The Song of Achilles — Madeline Miller ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
Circe — Madeline Miller ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
The Penelopiad — Margaret Atwood ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
You Better Be Lightning — Andrea Gibson ⭐️⭐️⭐️
Conversations with Friends — Sally Rooney ⭐️⭐️⭐️
Burnout: The Secret to Unlocking the Stress Cycle — Emily + Amelia Nagoski ⭐️⭐️⭐️