Unhustled Reading

Issue 10

A Weekly Newsletter

Celebrating the joy of reading without the pressure—exploring books that entertain, inspire, and enrich your life.

Note: Books are Amazon affiliate links, which means I may receive a commission if you buy through it. It doesn’t cost you extra, but it does support my work.

Hello Reader,

Going through some really old books from a family member, I found a gem — the second story in the classic Hardy Boys Mystery series.

Copyright 1927. 🙀😍

Remember these Nancy Drew and Hardy Boys books? Pure magic. It got me thinking about how reading has changed for me — from being a kid who couldn’t wait to turn the next page to now staring guiltily at that stack of personal growth books I “should” read.

(Does this sound familiar?)

The hidden cost of ‘should’ reading

A couple of responses to last week's Unhustled hit my inbox this week and stopped me cold.

A reader wrote: ”I feel like I am stagnant and cold like a pond after a perennial river dries up.”

Another called themselves a “bad reader” – and my heart broke, because I’ve whispered those same words to myself.

Are self-help books destroying your self-worth?

Here’s a wild thought: Atomic Habits by James Clear has been on the bestseller list for 301 weeks. That’s six years of us collectively trying to optimize ourselves. Yes, it helped me too. But it also became another stick to beat myself with.

Even with detailed notes and the best intentions, I felt like I was failing at every strategy.

It's taken me almost 2 years to figure out the problem had less to do with inaction and was instead more about undiagnosed ADHD and how my neurodivergent brain interpreted hustle culture's demands. The concepts aren't wrong — my expectations in their implementation were screwed up.

A little more than a year ago when I asked my therapist, "What might happen if I let curiosity lead again?"

I didn't know the question would lead me to an 82-week reading streak.

But when I started choosing topics and books that genuinely intrigued me, and gave myself permission to return books I'd borrowed that didn't immediately engage me, reading stopped being a chore.

Suddenly, reading wasn’t a chore — it was an adventure again, just like those Hardy Boys days.

Reading for Joy: The Case for Un-Goals

As we head into the hectic holiday season, when just making it to the next event or deadline feels like enough, I want to propose something different for 2025:

What if we stopped chasing personal “optimization” goals and instead let curiosity guide our reading choices?

What might happen if we simply followed our interests rather than trying to check off boxes on a self-improvement checklist?

No metrics. No self-improvement agendas. Just the simple joy of a good book.

I’ll admit – I struggled with this idea at first. How do you work toward a goal that doesn’t have numerical benchmarks?

What could this look like for you? I’d love to hear your thoughts. I read and reply to every response.

— Tracy

P. S. If you're in the United States, please take time to vote. Then escape the insanity of this election cycle and prognosticators paid to keep us all freaked out.

Read a good book.

Wildest political thriller I've read this year: The First Lady, James Patterson.

Best political biography: The Accidental President: Harry S. Truman and the Four Months That Changed the World, A. J. Baime.