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I Went on a Reading Diet. Here’s What I Learned.
I (mostly) avoided books, texts, mags, and social media for a week. It was hard but worth it.
I went on a seven-day reading diet and while it didn’t change my life, it certainly inspired some… adjustments.
For an entire week, I didn’t read a single novel. I stayed off Facebook and Twitter, I avoided my three-newspapers-a-day with coffee in the morning, I skimmed texts and only responded if an emergency, and I avoided my newly acquired poem-a-day habit thanks to a new-to-me daily read of Rumi. No going down a Google rabbit hole about the latest racist incident at The Bachelor, no bedtime stories for my children, no tarot or astrology Instagram posts, and no newsletters about the latest problems or solutions for pandemic parenting, selecting a summer school program, women’s politics, everybody-is-reading-this-magazine-article articles, or baking a better apple pie.
It was almost cold turkey for me on the reading, except I did permit myself the grace to read for work — after all, I am an editor and I read for a living. But a mentor suggested I pick up The Artist’s Way, after hearing my troubles finding a deeper well of creativity, and the book suggested that I shut off all the external noise and get to listening to myself. It initially sounded absurd. Me? Not read anything? But that small voice inside slapped me upside my head and said try it.
I — and we — all consume a lot. It’s overwhelming. Many of my friends and people in my social circle have published books recently, and I want to support them all. Newsletter subscriptions notify me of very important stories™ every hour on the hour and sometimes twice daily. TV shows alert me to extra behind-the-scenes content. Weekly podcasters drop mini-pods midweek. Someone Black, or Latinx or Asian or Native has a story to share, and I want to listen to it and love on it and amplify it. Basically, I love to read, and as a kid would spend hours under the dining room table powering through novel after novel after novel. My mother would yell at me to come wash the dishes because I’d read through the morning, the afternoon, and dusk. But life isn’t so simple now. I have a job, a young family, an older extended family, and lots of responsibilities. Consuming scads of…
