As always, let’s start with the numbers …

Physical Comics Read: 13 (0/0)
Digital Comics Read: 0 (469/471)
Trade Paperbacks/Graphic Novels Read: 6 (24/39)
Books Read: 5 (113/121)
Movies Watched: 0 (115/123)
TV Seasons Completed: 0 (87/90)
TV Shows Completed: 0 (35/37)
Podcast Episodes Remaining: 240

That podcast number keeps increasing. Oy.

I was having coffee with a friend yesterday and at one point, we were talking about how sometimes, in the middle of a particular reading projects, something else will come along to completely distract you. Take, for instance, the book I’m currently reading, which is A Walk in the Woods by Bill Bryson. This should be a pretty quick read–in fact, I read it 20 years ago and it was–but it’s taken me weeks to get through because I keep getting distracted by comics. Instead of sitting down with the book every night, I would continue my trek through years of X-Men and Starman. Now, as far as this “uncollecting” project is concerned, that’s good because it takes a few things off my piles. But it doesn’t help with my desire to be a little more singularly focused in places.

Distraction is one of those things that I have been working on as of late because I often find myself unable to focus on a singular task. For example, as I’ve been writing this post, I’ve checked two other tabs, gotten up and refilled my cup of water, and looked out the window at the weather because I want to go hiking later this morning and it rained last night. It’s always been kind of a thing with me–in fact, I was often distracted as a kid–but lately, it’s gotten to the point where I actually find it annoying. Where it’s coming from I’m not 100% certain: it could be the amount of stuff I feel like I have on my plate (more on that I feel later), feeling required to multitask, or my anxiety.

With that last one, there is an anxiety voice of mine that will chide me for “not doing enough”, as if there is an official measurement of “enough” that a person has to get done over the course of their day or lifetime. That leads to the perceived multitasking requirement because I feel like I need to get a bunch of things done or have a bunch of stuff on my plate. When I really think about that, I have to wonder how much of that stuff actually needs to get done and how much of it is me putting the stuff there because I’ve got to look busy all the time.

Then I wonder about its origin. Where did I pick up this mindset of having to be busy? It’s … shit, it’s complicated and worth its own entire post or something. But, really, it’s a wonder that I get anything done lately.