hanki.dev

You'll never read all the books you want to read

There are so many wonderful books out there, that even if you started right now and read 2 hours every day for the rest of your life, you wouldn't be able to read all the fantastic books you want to read. New books get published, you get interested in new topics and your friends tell you about old gems you've missed. No way you're able to read all that before you die.

Same goes with movies. Too many great movies. Same with video games, manga, places you want to travel, stuff you want to do, side projects you want to code and the hobbies you want to start.

So the only book/mobile/game/manga/city/project/thing/whatever you should do and focus is, is the one which gives you most enjoyment right now. It sounds simple but makes you appreciate everything so much more. This is something I started thinking about after I limited my internet usage.

How do you do this in practice? For me it's 2 things.

1. Don't have to-read, to-watch or any to-lists for fun stuff

If there's an interesting movie you want to watch, watch it as soon as possible while you still find it fascinating. Putting it to your to-watch list does nothing good, only overwhelms your future decision making on which movie to watch. If you don't watch the movie soon and forget about it, it probably wasn't your cup of tea anyways.

Having no to-watch list makes discovering new stuff (movies in this example) also more interesting. When you can't just add it to the end of your endless to-watch list, it makes discovering hidden gems even more fun. You know you'll forget about it, or lose interest if you don't watch the movie soon. At least for me this reduces choice dilemma and makes movies nights so much better.

2. You don't have to finish it

I love manga and constantly check out new stories I find interesting. More often than not, a manga has an interesting premise but falls offs after few dozen chapters. I used to feel guilty about not finishing stuff I've started, but that's just wrong. Your time is way too valuable to waste time on something you don't fully enjoy. Finishing 60% of a book, while enjoying it, is better that finishing 100%, while not enjoying half of that. Story doesn't have to be finished to bring you some value. Vagabond is a perfect example, I only read 100+ chapters of it but still think about it probably every week ¯_(ツ)_/¯

Your to-read list is more of a never-reading list, so just read whatever you feel like reading right now.


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