November Book Club Pick: How to Do Nothing

If you aren't living under a rock, I don't need to tell you that we're....going through some stuff right now. I have refreshed my news feed approximately 50,000,000 times and my stomach has been in knots for days. 2020 just keeps serving up stinking platters of dog crap (sorry), and all I can say is that I hope things turn around sooner than later.

This brings me to our November book club pick. How to Do Nothing: Resisting the Attention Economy by Jenny Odell seems pretty timely considering where we're at this year. Since March, the amount of time I've spent on social media despairing over the state of our ongoing crises has skyrocketed. Between doomscrolling, I have found that my attention span is next to zero, and when I am able to take a break and relax or focus on a hobby, I freeze, unable to do anything. And as an overachiever, I find I'm unable to put genuine efforts into hobbies or projects because of my expectation that everything must become a side hustle and if I'm not amazing at it and it's not Instagrammable then WHY AM I DOING IT?! Sorry. My stress levels are high.

Odell's book guides readers through how to focus our attention in a new way.

From the publisher:

"...once we can start paying a new kind of attention, [Odell] writes, we can undertake bolder forms of political action, reimagine humankind’s role in the environment, and arrive at more meaningful understandings of happiness and progress."

I don't know about you, but learning how to focus my attention away from social media, capitalistic expectations, and the endless cycle of bad news, and toward what really matters sounds amazing right now. I am tired of feeling frozen, unmotivated and paralyzed by the status quo. I'm so excited to channel my energy into our November book club pick, and come out the other side feeling lighter and less attached to societal norms.

I hope you'll read along with us this month, and may your stress levels remain low!

-Emily