Within the Bookends

By the time January first arrives, we have barely finished closing the door on the year before it. We have just come through a season of reflection, celebration, and looking back, and almost immediately we are asked to pivot. To decide what the new year will be. To imagine how we are supposed to change ourselves into something new, as if who we are right now is somehow unfinished or not enough.

That framing carries a lot of pressure.

It asks us to change behaviors, and behavior change is hard. It asks us to reinvent ourselves quickly, cleanly, and on a schedule. And when we struggle with that, the failure feels personal, even though the expectation itself was unrealistic to begin with.

Instead of seeing each year as a reset, I tend to think of it more like a book.

We just closed the final pages of the last one. Now we are handed a new volume, still unopened. We do not know what the chapters will be like. We do not know how long it will be. We do not know what will challenge us, surprise us, or change us. That uncertainty can feel scary, overwhelming, exciting, and even magical, all at once.

And maybe that is where our attention should be.

When it comes to reading, the new year often brings goals. Numbers to hit. Challenges to complete. A sense that we should be chasing something measurable. But reading goals can start to feel a lot like other resolutions. A number becomes the focus, rather than the experience itself.

What does it really mean if you read fewer books than you planned? Life happens. Some books ask more of us than others. Some seasons leave less space for reading. Some books are simply longer, deeper, and slower, just like certain chapters of our lives. That does not make them failures. It makes them meaningful.

Reading was never meant to be perfect.

It allows for pauses. It allows for change. It allows you to move at the pace your life is actually moving, not the pace you wish it were.

So if you are coming into this year hoping to read more, or to reconnect with reading, here is a gentler place to start.

Do not begin with a number.

Begin with curiosity.

Let your intention be simple. To read a book. One book. When you finish it, you can decide what comes next. Let interest guide you. Let mood guide you. Let the season you are in shape what you reach for.

What you read in January may look nothing like what you read in the summer, or in the fall, or in the quiet weeks at the end of the year. That is not inconsistency. That is being human.

There is no right pace. There is no correct outcome.

This year does not need a new version of you. It does not need reinvention or pressure or performance. It only asks that you stay open.

Be curious. Read. Take it one day at a time.

That is enough.