Part of my morning routine is to feed my mind a bit. After taking a modicum of time to reflect on a most excellent quote of Seneca's about choosing quality over quantity, my eyes rolled upon this gem:
What if, when you came to your reading and learning, you prioritized quality over quantity.
Ryan Holiday
Now here's the thing that struck me most about this. I am a speed reader, they taught me to read with a stop watch and I have been the Ricky Bobby of reading ever since.
For most of my life I devoured at least two books a day, and even as an adult who worked, was raising children, and running a farm, I still read a book a night.
And not just fluff fiction either, I would devour everything from deep existential philosophy tomes to wiring manuals for 1970 Ford F250's, I read everything!
But as my entry in The Daily Stoic reflected upon today, Even if you were the most dedicated reader in the world--a book a day even--your collection would probably never be bigger than a small branch library.
Thinking about that assertion along with the fact that even if I get to live until I am eighty, I am still about halfway through my allotment of weeks in this simulation, well let's just say I am re-evaluating my reading input.
For instance, over the last couple years especially, I have noticed that if I don't like a book, I am completely fine with not finishing it. Younger me didn't roll that way. Older, more time and quality appreciative me is completely at home with making a choice to stop filling my cortex with less than optimal content.
And that's the thing isn't it? We live in a time of overwhelming content availability, but in the spirit of quality and a minimalistic focus on less is more, perhaps there is a greater way to word consumption awesomeness.
Me, I don't feel the compulsion to absorb it all anymore. Rather, I find myself reaching for things of quality. There are some books out there that keep on giving no matter how many times your read them, both fiction and non-fiction. Spending more time with them because of the quality of their content is not a bad aim.
I think this sentiment aligns well with all content consumption and is a large reason why I work so hard to create blog posts of value. Why? Because I value other people's time as much as I value my own. I am not in the realm of content creation just to exploit people and make a quick buck, rather I want to offer something of value to people who take a moment of their very precious time and consume what I create.
The same goes for consuming the physical written word, and moving forward I will be a lot more discriminating with my most precious resource, my time, when it comes to spending time with some of my very favorite things ever, books.
And in the spirit of offering practical advice on how to achieve such a thing as quality over quantity when it comes to book consumption, here's a couple actions I am going to implement to help me attain this goal:
One: My personal library needs a weeding.
I have a book obsession. My library is full to the point of the shelves are overflowing. I need to go through the collection and weed out all the titles that don't fit the quality metric. This is not to say that those books are not valuable or good, rather that I am growing as a person and need to pare down what's in my space for continued growth and serenity purposes.
Two: My library account holds list needs a pruning.
As a lover of the written word, I tend to have a huge holds list on my library account. It is not uncommon for half a dozen (or more) holds to come in for me weekly. Even though I am a lover (and seeker) of knowledge from others and a devourer of fiction (especially fantasy and sci-fi), I don't (and can't) read every single book out there. Instead I am going to refine my holds list to areas that truly matter to me, new things that I need to learn to push me as a content creator, and fiction books that really bring me joy.
Most voracious readers know, you can get lost in reading it all, but that's just it, you can't read it all, and if you are always adrift in the realm of the written word, I can guarantee you that you are not deriving quality over quantity in every area of your life.
And like all growth aims, this is absolutely not comfortable for me to do at all. In fact, I feel a bit of resistance when I think about doing these two things and have procrastinated them for a while, which of course means I need to jump in and just do them. Because growing through putting yourself through uncomfortable change is far more rewarding and existentially delightful compared to stagnating and just existing and consuming your way through life.
At least, those are my thoughts on this area as of today!