Today is 14th of January and it is a day of festivals in India. What I mean by festivals(in plural) is that there are many festivals that is celebrated in different parts of India with different different names, like Makar Sankranti, Pongal, Lohri, Magh Bihu. Though the names are different and even the rituals are different, in the essence they all are harvest festivals and celebrate the same thing. It marks the end of winter solstice and celebrates the arrival of longer days and new crops.
Since it is such an auspicious day here I feel today is right day to take some resolutions and promise to stick to it.
- Reading more non-fiction
By saying this I don’t mean anyway that I will stop reading fiction or I discourage reading fiction. With all disclaimers reading fiction has it’s own benefit and it’s important to keep our creative juice flowing (I will write another blog post on the benefits of reading fiction). But I am taking this resolution because 2020 was a tough year. It made me feel secluded and at times it was hard to keep up the positive spirit. And at that time few of the non-fiction books were of great help to me. It pulled me out of the state of despair and gave me some deep inner strength. And that is with few books only. So, I decided to expand my horizon and explore all the hidden gems in the world on non-fiction which can add value to my life. - More active reading
So, there are 2 types of reading: active and passive. It defines more of how you engages with the text that you are reading. A passive reading just involves finishing the text without taking a moment to reflect, absorb and learn from it. Active reading is just opposite of it. It take more time to finish a book when you are reading actively because you take time to reflect, analyze, take notes or annotate. It’s a more wholesome experience.
So, this resolution is needed if I want to effectively follow my first resolution. It is pointless to read so many non-fiction books if you are not learning from it. I intend to make some positive changes in my life and it is a much needed tool to achieve it. - Reduce prejudices
In my life I have been often guided by prejudices whether mine or of the public while selecting my next read. I always tend to pick up the books that are very popular or mostly in the lists like ‘what should you read before you die?’. And this prejudices are carried not only for reading but also for putting forward my opinions. There are times when I have read these popular books and I haven’t liked it that much. But I was always scared to givvr my honest opinion because it is contradicting with the popular opinions about the book.
So, I want to take resolution to reduce these prejudices when picking my next read or putting forward my opinions. I am saying reduce because you can’t change yourself overnight, but being aware and taking conscious steps helps in reducing and in time eliminating the vice. - Write book reviews or summary
Over the time I have read so many books in my life but I have observed that I have forgotten most of the things I have read few years back. Now it’s always beautiful to re-read your favorite books but I want to increase my retention power. So, I take the resolution to write a summary or review of every book I read, so that first it solidifies the ideas or concepts that I have read and also it makes it easy for me to go and re-read the review whenever I want to refresh my memory.
So, these are my bookish resolutions. Let me know in comments if you have any bookish resolution for 2021. Happy reading 🙂
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