I have this distressing need to be thorough. I'm noticing it now with the load of reading I have to do, more reading than I can probably manage. So it makes sense to skip any chapters or sections that aren't relevant to my thesis. Cut out the extraneous stuff. But when I do that, I feel like I'm betraying my education in some way. As if I need to read every word for the book to count, even if it turns out not to be useful at all. Even if I know it won't be useful. I'm not sure where this comes from. I guess I just have a tendency to need to finish what I start. And I refuse to let not liking something stand in the way of finishing it, as if there's some moral superiority in having read every useless piece of information.