December Daring

I’ve been reading this book since Apr 23, 2012.

(According to Goodreads.)

But have I? Have I really?

Of course not. The book is only 278 pages with indexes and appendices.
I read more pages of fiction than that in the last two days.

What’s really happened is that I have wanted to read this book for 7 years and not made time to do so. (I got about halfway through.)

So WHY haven’t I finished it? Here are my theories:

• In 2012 I stopped being employed as a training professional by a big company, so this book stopped seeming as relevant
• It has been in the company of other non-fiction, business-related books on a shelf, and I have been focused on family; matters of literal human life and death
• I don’t draw (though I wish I did, which is part of why I bought this book)
• Reading is a thing I want to LOVE to do, primarily to relax, and this book isn’t relaxing (it requires actively learning)

So what? I have books that sit on my shelves that I wish-I-had-already-read, and may never get around to. I think a lot of people like me, who love reading and spend disposable income on books, have this issue.

But I really, really don’t want to be one of those people.

I wanna read fast, absorb information deeply, apply it immediately, review the book, and pass it on to the next person I know it can serve. I don’t want it hanging around on my shelf, a Schroedinger’s book that might be useful or might not, but I can’t know until I open up the damn book.

I have at least a hundred Schroedinger’s books on my shelves.

Not only do they not bring me joy in a Marie Kondo way, they actively weigh on me. They taunt me from the shelves, inciting guilt and self-loathing.

Why haven’t you finished me, Yvette?
You can’t finish anything you start, can you?
What’s wrong with you?

These books are symbols of all the unfinished in my life. And it’s a lot. And I have this idea that at my age, the balance of things left unfinished versus completed shouldn’t be so out-of-balance. I shouldn’t feel like they are weighing down my soul like a child sitting alone on a teeter-totter.

December Daring to the rescue.

This December I am going to DARE to finish things. Books, sure, because I want to reach my Goodreads goal, and I think it will be easier to finish some that I’ve already started than to start new ones.

I’m also going to finish two photo albums. I recently had to pull out a half-complete album of Mark’s childhood photos to find a particular image I knew was in-there-somewhere. Sure enough, I managed to put my hand on the album, and on the picture itself, within only minutes of searching.

That was a big organizational win, but to get there I had to see the half-dozen? Dozen? in-progress photo albums that are not finished. I want that to change. Even if I just finish getting the loose photos into Mark’s album, and one other, moving those to the shelves where I keep the completed books, that would be a great feeling.

My existence feels deeply in limbo today. There are too many choices for useful work I could do. Soul-fulfilling tasks. Interesting projects on the vast list of my life in-progress. Not to mention fascinating procrastination available.

This month is about what’s DONE-able. I resolve to START NOTHING NEW.
Instead, I will get momentum to complete and move forward and clear out. I’ll be ready for the challenges of 2020.

What is your December goal?
Any “done-able” things you’re looking forward to?