Why You Should Stop Finishing Books You Don’t Enjoy
3 Practical Reasons
I’ve discovered a new found pleasure in not finishing books, which I cannot seem to get through. It is called practicing the art of surrender. Just letting go of what doesn’t serve me. As a perfectionist by nature, this was counterintuitive — finishing a book was something I always practiced. After all, there is so much to learn from every page right till the very last sentence.
I am not suggesting that you should not finish books that you have to read for exams, training manuals for your job or anything that has to be done for a specific purpose. I’m talking about the time we take to read and learn from books in our spare time. Especially given it is our choice to decide what we would like to read, or not.
We read to gain knowledge, escape reality, become better people or just to merely find joy amongst a number of other reasons.
There are books we read to challenge ourselves; that may require some persistence in the beginning to reach a flow where the plot starts to unfold ever so beautifully. Those books need patience and time.
I’m talking about the books where you’re halfway in, still calculating how many pages to go and keep thinking So What? in your head. Those are the books that you should donate, give back to the library or simply put away.
“There is no friend so faithful as a good book. There is no worse robber than a bad book.”
― Italian proverb
The average person reads 12 books a year, which is skewed by the very avid readers amongst us. This means in reality, it’s closer to an average of 4 books a year. Now if that is all the time you have to read, you ought to make it worthwhile.
For those of you still not convinced, here are 3 reasons why I’d encourage you to stop finishing books just because you think you have to.
1. Books > Time on Earth
There are more books on Earth than we will ever have the time to read. Simple fact is that there will be so many unread words when we each go to our graves.
So many words that could have persuaded us, moved us, or inspired us.
So then why would you keep reading something that you really cannot resonate with, despite numerous attempts? Why make reading misery?
And when you read nonfiction, there is a goal to learn or practice something new. If you are reading just to read and get through the words, you will naturally retain close to none of it, let alone practice it.
Put simply, pick a new book and stop wasting time.
2. Understand the Sunk Cost Fallacy
A sunk cost is a cost that has been incurred, which can no longer be recovered. As such, sunk costs should not be considered when making the decision to continue a project or book in this case, since it cannot be recovered under any circumstance.
But, as you can see by the cartoon, often times we falsely believe that we should stick it out because we have already invested in buying a ticket to the movies, a book from the bookstore, a gym class, etc. We feel that because we have invested so much time in reading the book that if we keep reading we may finally learn what we were hoping to understand, or that the story will finally become interesting. That is often not the case.
So the next time you resist the urge to stop reading a book think about what you’ve learned so far, appreciate that you got exactly what you needed out of the book and put it down.
“I intend to put up with nothing that I can put down.” — Edgar Allan Poe
3. Letting Go of Pride and Perfection
We all know the joy in finishing a book and placing it on our bookshelf with glee. The accomplishment of looking at how many books you’ve read. Not finishing books feels flakey.
We love to put check marks on lists like we enjoy flipping each and every page. Holding a finished book is like carrying a prized possession.
But we all know that is our mere ego. We should let go of our pride. Let go of the perfection. Instead of focusing on how many books we finish, we should focus on how much we have learned. How much we remember. How much we practice. How entrenched we were in each page. How magical it was.
“In the case of good books, the point is not to see how many of them you can get through, but rather how many can get through to you.” — Mortimer J. Adler
So the next time you’re feeling miserable reading through a book, remember this article and all the more memorable things you could be reading instead.
