Last year was very difficult for almost everybody on the entire planet. I wasn't an exception. The lockdowns and the ever returning quarantines left me very emotionally labile. To the point when even when I had time, I often had no motivation to open a book and get intelectually challenged. Read my intial ambitions for previous here on Reading Challenge 2020 (My optimism didn't age well)
This year, I start, once again, with a clean slate. I still want to keep my chin up and commit to some challenging goal. This is a challenge after all. I have an extensive library right next to my bed that has historic as well as modern pieces. Fiction and non-fiction alike. Book by book, I would like to start getting through it. For a long time, I felt guilty that I own so many books that I only half-finished. Even more so because I was actually enjoying even those unfinished books.
Part of the reason adapting to covid was so difficult for me were my strong habits. One of which was sitting at my favorite Berlin coffee shop every Saturday, sipping a lovely flat white and enjoying my book. After the coffee shop closed, I went to a local piano store to practice. Every Saturday without a mistake, I was there. When the first lockdowns arrived in Berlin, all that came to an end. Like everybody else, I was thrown out of my habits and left with vast emptiness in my free time.
After I lost the access to my routines, it became clear to me that I lost way more than just a way to spend free time. I lost motivation to go further, picking up a book became a chore. And what I didn't want most of all was for reading to become an errand that I have to "finish" each week. This year, it's obvious I need to form new habits and to figure out what works. Lockdowns don't seem to be going anywhere.
The goal for this year is not exactly the number of books to read. But staying sane and hope that books will help me achieve that.
