I'm not sure who needs to hear this but...

Project Positivity Journal Day 15: Notice your progress.

It’s been MONTHS since I have been able to sit quietly and focus long enough to be able to read a book. M O N T H S.

One of the first things I did when I moved here at the end of August, was register for a library card at the local library, and check out a handful of books.

I read approximately none of them.

I started 2 and finished none before dropping them all off a few weeks later when they were due.

I wanted to read them. I had every intention of reading all of them, but every time I sat down to read, I couldn’t focus. Two sentences in and I’d shut the book closed and pick up my phone to distract myself.

After the election results in November, I checked out a few more books relevant to the current times we were now living in, and proceeded to watch them collect dust sitting on the edge of my desk. I didn’t even open them before returning them a few weeks later when they were due. I didn’t bother renewing them. I knew I wasn’t going to read them.

I haven’t been back to the library since.

As someone who does tend to romanticize reading and think about wanting to read more than she actually READS… I still average about one book a month. It’s not a lot. I am not bragging, by any means, and am, in fact, astounded when I hear someone mention that they’ve finished 4 books IN A WEEK (and I’m not talking audiobooks) because, HOW????

I can’t sit for long enough to finish READING 4 books a MONTH, let alone FOUR IN ONE WEEK, but I certainly can LISTEN to 1-4 audiobooks a month because I can listen while doing other things, like painting, which I enjoy, and then I feel like I’m killing two birds with one stone, so to speak.

However, I also haven’t even been able to listen to an audiobook in months!

My digital library is full of books I haven’t finished and brimming with unused credits, the likes of which I’ve never seen before!

And then today, a funny thing happened while I was cooking dinner…

I randomly chose to listen to an audiobook instead of scroll on TikTok.

And then I actually finished the book!

Sure, I was on the last chapter, with only about 47 minutes left, but it felt like a small win nonetheless, and I took a moment to notice my progress.

When I first heard that TikTok might be banned, I panicked.

You see, TikTok is one of the ONLY social media platforms that I consume more content than I create… it feels like a place to be entertained, rather than to entertain, and I’ve never used it as part of my business.

While I have shared roller skating videos there for a few years and posted a few other random, silly videos, I mostly enjoy content from other creators and have even found that in the last few months I watch it at night instead of watching a show on Netflix, etc., because along with reading, I also haven’t been able to sit with an attention span for even a 30 minute episode.

It wasn’t that TikTok STOLE my attention span, or shortened it, as sometimes it gets blamed, it was that TikTok’s short-form videos allowed me to distract myself long enough to disassociate from all of the pain I was going through and the emotions that were too much to bear, during a time where I felt extremely alone and scared… and then it also got me through the pre and post election in early November, when I had no one to talk to about it all… there were thousands of like-minded people on my phone who shared my same grief and brought me solace.

The algorithm works differently than Instagram and so the content I get is quite entertaining and informative, in most cases (if you know, you know). I actually learn a lot there, but mostly, the addictive quality of being able to scroll, scroll, SCROLL, from one video to the next (some 1 min long and others up to ten mins long) kept my attention in a time when I needed a distraction to keep me from going insane. I’ve been hooked ever since, in a way that I’ve never been hooked on any other app.

I started making music around the same time, for the same reason.

It was around the middle of October 2024, and the first time