Setting Goals: The Reading List

I have always been a very driven, goal oriented person.  It is one of the reasons I did well in the software business for so long, I was able to strive toward a goal;  work to a deadline and pull many (sometimes unwilling) colleagues along with me, by sheer force of will (and occasional threats of violence).

But it is very difficult to set goals when you are chronically ill. Surprisingly (to me), even the small goals proved a challenge. 

I tried. I took some classes. I had to drop out of the PhotoShop class halfway through because I was having seizures or auras.  I stopped the yoga class because they were doing a lot of moves that are ill advised for a person with Ehlers-Danlos Syndrome and/or Syringomyelia. I kept having to bail on my neighbour for our dog-walking runs because of seizures and fatigue or pain. I was fired from Physical Therapy because I kept having seizures there. And I grew tired of missing goals I set for myself around the house (like repaint the upstairs bathroom, which is tiny); unable to perform them due to pain, fatigue, seizures or dizziness.

There are a lot of things I would like to do and learn. Ambitious (and currently impossible) projects like an MBA aside; there are many classes I would like to attend, just for laughs: Knife skills, sewing, ballroom dancing,  (an ambitious one, that), yoga, pilates, pottery, jewelry making, beading, painting -... the list is endless! But right now, I can't do it. I cannot spend money I don't have on a class I may not be able to attend.  It is very limiting. And soul destroying.

Recently, my seizures and dizziness have been even worse, leaving me even more bored and isolated. I have been spending less time on the computer because the screen bothers my eyes. I was stuck for something to do, because I CANNOT sit and watch telly for hours on end.  I knit until my hands hurt. I listened to all my CD a gazillion times, got bored with all of them, but was too poor or stingy to seek new music.  So I finally renewed my relationship with the public library. 

Cool.

And I decided that now is the perfect time; -while I am pretty disabled, and until I can get some decent treatment, to do something I had been meaning to do for many years. Read some classic novels.  Oh yeah baby!  Here is an opportunity to set some goals AND to improve my tiny little mind.  My butt may suffer, but it was suffering anyway. Without good medical guidance, there is no helping the butt right now.

I  decided to set myself a list of 26 classic novels to read, one for each letter of the alphabet. When I am finished that list I will assign myself another one. I was unsure where to begin, so I shouted out to my Facebook friends for some recommendations which they readily gave (thank you!).  And then I gathered a few "100 best..." lists off the Internet, went through those and -somewhat randomly- came up with my final list. I thought to keep it to one per letter of the alphabet where possible, because that would place some books on there that I probably would not have chosen otherwise -just to mix things up a bit. And it stops me from reading only books that start with "G" or "H", or from reading six books by the same author at once; both habits towards which I gravitate.  

There are some obvious holes in this list because I may have read the book already a gazillion times, (Wuthering Heights) or because I just couldn't be arsed (Ulysses).  I couldn't find any J, K, X and Q books, so I substituted those with  a few other letters.  I am sharing this list just to keep myself honest (but I reserve the right to stop reading a book if I hate it)!

A

Anna Kerenina by Leo Tolstoy

Atlas Shrugged by Ayn Rand

B

Blood Meridian by Cormac McCarthy

C

Cat's Cradle by Kurt Vonnegut

Crime and Punishment by Fyodor Dostoevsky

D
Dracula by Bram Stoker

E

Enders's Game  by Orson Scott Card

F

Frankenstein by Mary Shelly

G

Germinal by Emile Zola

The Grapes of Wrath by  John Steinbeck

H

A Handful of Dust Evelyn Waugh 
(Mrs whatsername with the hand-knit Fair Isle sweaters from high school will be happy that I finally crossed something off me High school reading list after all these years.  Although I didn't realize until today that Waugh wrote "Brideshead Revisited", which I had read  before high school, or I might have lost one less brownie point from her.)

The Heart of the Matter by Graham Greene

I

I , Claudius by  Robert Graves
(loved the TV series with Derek Jacoby!)

L

Loving by Henry Green

M

Madame Bovary by Gustave Flaubert

N

Nostromo by Joseph Conrad

O

One Flew over the Cuckoo's Nest by Ken Kesey

P

Play it As It Lays by Joan Didion

R

Ragtime by E.L. Doctorow

S

Shirley by  Charlotte Bronte

T

Tender is the Night by F. Scott Fitzgerald

U

Under the Volcano by Malcolm Lowry

V

V. by Thomas Pynchon

W

The Wide Sargasso Sea by Jean Rhys

Y

Yarrow by Charles de Lint

Z

Zuleika Dobson by Max Beerbohm

 

I have no idea how long this will take me, and I am setting myself no timeframes for completion of this task. The satisfaction should be in the journey, anyway. 

I hope.

Comments

[Roanmom]

Wha...no Jodi Picoult;)

[Quirky Mom]

That looks like quite a journey to enjoy.

Hey, are you on goodreads? I have a list of books I've read/am reading/want to read on there. It's handy. :) Although I haven't looked at it in a while...

[One Sick Mother]

Roanmom,

Feck off!

QM,

No. No goodreads. I am on ...something. I forgot what. But I couldn't be arsed with a lot of that stuff, to be honest. If I want to discuss a book, I prefer to do it with someone I know and care about.

And the level I go into is "I liked it" or "I hated it" I couldn't be bothered analyzing what we think the author might be thinking. I'm sure the author had a therapist for that ;)

OSM

[Carleen]

Interesting list you've got there, OSM! You've inspired me to create a list of my own for the summer. Even though I've read lots and lots of the great books -- that happens when you teaching English and Comparative Literature -- there are still more than enough of them for me to make a decent list. I think I'll order them by author just to be different.

[Carleen]

I really need to proofread before I click on that POST button -- "when you teaching. . ." ROFL!!

[achelois]

Hello from the UK. If it helps I am exactly the same with regard to achievable goals - I have EDS Hypermobility Type (formerly K/A Type III) so I guess the goalposts constantly move for me with regard to goals. Keep blogging you are an inspiration.