Good morning,
We all know we shouldn’t compare ourselves to others, as we never know how it’s really like VS how it looks, and well- it does more harm than good… However, when you’re constantly flooded of other people doing “better” than you while being in a lower set of mind – it’s becoming hard not to 😅
It’s also important to note that the book community also helped me improve in my hobby, which i’ve been really pleased about!
The main thing that has me bothered lately is how slow i’m reading; resulting ofcourse in how many books I can read in a month. I’d love to be the type of people that can read more than 5books a month- hell even being able to read a book in one day!
My trouble of concentration is sadly against that goal.. My dad’s television being too high might result in enough distraction so I don’t focus enough on the words i’m reading. Either I won’t picture anything in my head, or I just won’t retain the informations I just read. Depends on the book, I can spend an hour reading, only to go up to maybe 5% through the book.. which sure is deceiving. That mainly lead me to Stay away from bigger books, staying in the range on <500 words.
Said trouble of concentation above bring me to not being able to read at any given time in the day – as I need a specific bracket of quiet to be able to even read and understand what I read. Which is also quite a good way how others get to wiggle so many books read. Audiobooks are also a challenge, as if i’m doing anything too “mind consuming”, I might tune out the entire thing and being reminded of the book playing later so that I would’ve skip a big chunck and be completely lost. I found audiobooks to work better when i’m playing mindless games on my phone or simming.
Everything resulting from the same “defect” in my brain also lead me to a genre restriction – as I’ve been really open about always, high fantasy is a big no as of right now, as I know it might not work with my brain. And as that’s mainly what’s being hyped and mostly of what my friends are all reading.. knowing i’m not able to get there troubles me sometimes. Like i’m behind in a way, although there’s plenty of genres niches too in our community! Take romance & cosy mysteries for exemple- iknow not everything resolve around fantasy! but a good majority seems to be.
Reading and gaming are hobbies that both resulted from childhood, around the same time, being tied to different important persons in my life (Mother’s sister & brother). In my day, I tend to priorise gaming more – picking it over reading in daytime, which you might say makes sense, as distractions are toxic to my understanding of a book. When i’m really obsessed with one game, ofcourse it affects my reading decreasing, as that’s the world I wanna be into more.
At times, this makes me feel like an outsiders in the reading community, as it’s completely flipped from most people that would do the opposite and again- spend more hours reading instead.
Have you been feeling reading insecurities lately too?