I Read 100 Books—and Still Felt Empty

I thought reading 100 books in a year would make me feel accomplished. I made spreadsheets, tracked every title, and filled my days with audiobooks and e-readers, squeezing pages into every crack of my schedule. Two books a week, every week. I stopped watching TV, stopped going out. I started reading at stoplights, in line at the grocery store, during meals. People called it impressive. I posted the list online and got likes, but it felt hollow. Most days, I didn’t even remember what I’d read. I was always behind, always anxious, always calculating how many pages I needed to finish before bed. I told myself I loved reading, but it became another metric, another thing to optimize. I don’t know what I was chasing. Validation? Escape? The hope that if I just read enough, I’d finally feel like I mattered. But when I hit 100, I just felt tired. I still do. #AcademicBurnout #OverachieverProblems #BookwormFatigue #Education