Discussion Post- Is There A Pressure Of Having To Read A Lot In the Bookish Community?

Helloo guys!! So I’ll admit- my main reason for writing this post is because I am EXTREMELY salty that I haven’t really read much in the last month or so. I’ve gone into this weird slump, and I’m bitter about it, and that’s the main cause of this post. But while being my general bitter self, I realised that I felt…guilty about not having read much?? And then I got a bit confused about why I was feeling guilty.

So I sat and thought, and procrastinated on some homework, cuz lets be honest, even staring at a blank white wall is more fun than hw  and I realised, that unknowingly, we have all ended up creating this pressure on ourselves to have to read a lot so that we can feel part of the “bookworm family”, and if we don’t read enough, we feel we aren’t doing our duty as a bookworm, so we stress out. I want to discuss this and how we do this a bit more, but first, here’s a mini list about why we feel this pressure, cuz mini lists are much more fun than big paragraphs.

• we as bookworms think that our sole mission in life is to just read, so if we do anything against our mission, we stress out
• there are some people who actually manage to read tonsss of books every month, so we constantly compare ourselves to them and feel like we’re doing something wrong and we should read that much too
• we think that to be called a “bookworm”, we need to read 45.6755 books every month otherwise we’re just #pretenders and not real bookworms
• goodreads challenges, though are amazing and motivate people to read, at the same time also put the pressure of HAVING to read a specific amount of books to feel successful
• We just stress out too much
• we reallyyyy need to chill
• comparing ourselves to others is the main reason tbh

So I just wanted to discuss- why do we create this pressure on ourselves to read, when reading is supposed to be something we enjoy doing. If we pressurise ourselves to read, is it something we do for enjoyment anymore? Or does it become a chore? I have barely read in the past month, and I feel guilty about it, because it feels like I’m not living up to what I call myself, and that in some weird way, I’m letting down the bookworm in me. But is that actually true? Because reading is supposed to be something I enjoy doing, and I should read only when I enjoy it instead of forcing myself, because that takes all the fun out of it.

I think that unknowingly, we have created this pressure in the book community- a pressure to read all the hyped and popular books otherwise you aren’t being the right kind of reader, a pressure to read lots of books in a month otherwise you aren’t fulfilling your bookworm duty, a pressure of reading a lot just to show people we love books.

But the thing is, that you can love books without reading 88 of them a month. You can be a bookworm by reading two books a month and just really loving reading them. Being a bookworm just means loving reading, and the number doesn’t matter as much. The number of books you read doesn’t define how much you love reading. And comparing yourself to others wont help. Some people are just quick readers and manage to balance out their work and reading well enough to be able to read a lot. Just because they do it doesn’t mean you have to do it as well- everyone has different capabilities. That doesn’t mean that you should drop every other thing you enjoy doing just so you can read a lot, because how much you enjoy reading is what matters more.

I think Goodreads in a way adds to this pressure. Though the concept of a reading challenge is great, because it motivates you to read and gives you a goal to work towards, I think that in some ways, it does add some pressure too, because you feel stressed to HAVE to read those many books, and if you don’t, you think you’ve failed yourself. I’m the perfect example for this right now, because I’ve set myself to another challenge of 100 books this year as I had read 107 last year, but just three months into the year, I’m already quite tragically behind on my challenge. I have lots of homework and studies and projects to do right now, and I’m also in a slump so I just don’t have time to read, and I know that’s okay and I shouldn’t stress, but I can’t help feeling guilty about letting down on my challenge, even though I know that I need to prioritize my studies.

I don’t exactly know what I’ve been trying to say to say this entire post and I think I’ve repeated myself a lot because I don’t really know how to explain what I’m trying to say, but I hope you get the gist?? My point is: don’t pressurize yourself into thinking you don’t read “enough”, because as long as you are happy, you are reading enough.

What do you think? Do you agree with me? Do you feel this kind of pressure too? Lets discuss in the comments below!

Thanks for reading!

-Rhea