It is November…and I’m probably not going to finish my Goodreads goal. A goal that I had already changed once from its normal 100 to 80. And I have to keep reminding myself that that’s okay. It’s not that I couldn’t finish it if I really wanted to, because all it would take is finding a new Manga series that I get hooked on, but I’m going to be honest with you, nothing’s really peaking my interest in that department right now. In a sense, the reading challenge isn’t a challenge anymore. Not for someone who enjoys reading. It’s become another example for me of how everything has to be a competition or a sport. We are always comparing ourselves to each other or trying to achieve some pinnacle of something in our own minds, and it sucks the joy out of everything.
I’m writing this on election day, which is a weird thing to think about. The entire country is in turmoil, and I’m talking about a reading challenge, but they aren’t completely separate. Let me start this by saying that I am, by nature, an extremely competitive person. Like, to the point where I won’t try certain things if I know I’ll lose. It serves me well in some areas. When I did NaNoWriMo to write Welcome to Chicago, it worked out great. There were benchmarks to make, and like hell was I going to miss one. It’s also going to get me a speeding ticket one of these days as I attempt to beat the time that the GPS originally set for reaching my destination (I will shave off those last five minutes, darn it). But in other ways, in a lot of ways, it’s detrimental not just to me but to everyone around me. I’m unhappy because I’m not meeting some invisible goal line that either I set for myself or someone that I have compared myself to hit, whether it be at the gym or on social media, in parenting, writing, reading, whatever, if I am feel like I am doing a terrible job from I am comparing myself to others I’m going to be a grouch.
Politics has become another competition for most of the country, it’s treated like a sport. Just pulling up my Google news brings up, “Can Democrats mount a comeback? Look to Tuesday’s elections for clues.” (Politico), or “How each party wins Tuesday’s elections” (The Hill). And it’s not just the news doing it, this is coming from the government itself as well, which I guess is what happens when the president can’t differentiate his reality show past from the fact that he has actual people’s lives in his hands. From another Politico headline today, it’s clear that it’s all about him winning and losing and not at all what’s best for the people that he is hurting with his horrid decisions: “Trump urges Republicans to kill filibuster, warning they’ll lose if they don’t.”
When a Hiroshima survivor is in Chicago, reminding us that nuclear bombs are bad, because apparently we don’t remember when our forbearers wreaked havoc on Japan with two nuclear bombs in a war that they had already pretty much won, we need to stop and ask ourselves, when did this get so out of hand? And why is winning and losing so much more important to the people in charge (on both sides, though really, when the choice is lose your healthcare or lose food…well, the side that has the power to give people food and healthcare needs to step the hell up). Which brings me back to my point about the Goodreads reading challenge.
This year, I focused more on learning and growing, and reading books that I enjoyed and spending time with them to relax, because the world is a damn mess. I went from reading 303 books in 2023 to maybe eighty at the end of this year. And that’s okay, because I’m also trying to make the world a better place. I’m working to teach my son not just his second grade curriculum, but right from wrong, how to treat others, because that’s not something we stop doing when they’re four. It’s a lifelong journey and reading, as long as we don’t suck the fun out of it like we do everything else, can help with that. Life shouldn't be a competition, life should be fun and making the world better for everyone, so everyone can have food and healthcare, regardless of what political party is in power, because we’ve been here before, a little under a hundred years ago actually, we need to stop thinking about who is the best and thinking about how we can provide the best help to those who have less than us.
