How Reading Saved My Year (2022)

2022 was a tough year for most of us. I went through financial & emotional burnout. I decided to rest for as long as it took for my mind & body to recover. I had near to no energy for doing any meaningful work, so I had to bring things to halt. One month into the rest period and I realized not doing anything is making it worse.

I realized creating something takes energy but consumption is almost passive. Internet content felt shallow, filtered & secondhand. I wanted to consume quality content to fill in my knowledge gaps. I decided to read Books.

I got told by a few “Reading won’t do anything for you”. I shut those people off. I knew not reading won’t do anything either.

Around February, I started reading slowly. My brother lent me his kindle and our book club became a place to hang out with other readers. I started ordering physical copies slowly. We started applying what we learned in “Atomic Habits” and it helped immensely to set the reading habit in place.

In the beginning, I used Audiobooks + Physical Books to aid me to get into reading. I decided not to push myself to finish books. I read only what interested me. I tried different books, & I quit books that I lost interest in. I stopped being hard on myself. I kept in my comfort zone until I picked pace. Around June I was reading one book a week. Then I decided to up the game and started picking difficult titles. Started reading for a longer time, and made 21-day-long streaks. I was juggling at least 2 and at most 5 books at a time to keep my interest up. I started tracking my progress and it kept me hooked. The daily target was a meager 10 pages. When the days were difficult, I read 10 pages. When things were interesting the numbers went close to 150 pages in a day. I managed on average 40 pages per day. I read slowly, so on average, it took me 10-12 hours to finish a book.

Work took off in November, so I decided to take a break from reading. The last book I read was “How to Read a Book” by Mortimer J. Adler.

By November I had ordered 50+ titles. I read through 29+ titles, cover to cover. Others I skimmed, half-read and quit halfway or shelved for reading later, with no guilt.

Following are my 10 Favourites from what I read this year:

1. Atomic Habits by James Clear: Best Instructional Book

2. The Almanack of Naval Ravikant by Eric Jorgensen: Most Influential Book of the Year

3. Incerto Series by Nassim Taleb: If you could read only one book in your lifetime, take one from Incerto

4. Flow by Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi: Must read on Happiness

5. How Will You Measure Your Life by Clayton M. Christensen: Must read for People Entering their 30s, will set the priorities straight.

6. Think Again by Adam Grant: Must Read for Decision Makers & Learners

7. Quiet by Susan Cain: Must Read for Introverts

8. Rework by Jason Fried: Radical Ideas for Work & Business

9. Linchpin by Seth Godin: Must read to understand what makes one Indispensable

10. How to Read a Book by Mortimer J. Adler: Best ever Book on Reading Books

I can’t claim that the books made me any better than others, but they sure made me better than myself. They left me better than when I found them. They gave me plenty of ways to think about the world. That is helping me understand things happening around me.

2022 started with Lemons. I am grateful that I had a supportive environment for making Lemonade out of them. Having a shelf full of books, a competitive bookworm brother & friends who appreciate bookworms immensely helped with motivation. Without them, I had no chance at reading.