Why I am getting rid of all my books

For the past weeks I have been reading more and more blogs on minimalism, I have watched several youtube videos and I have spent more time on trying to figure out what minimalism would mean to me.

The last couple of days I have cleaned out some drawers, reorganizing things I’d keep, cleaning out the dirt and throwing away stuff no one would never need. I put my small collection of post cards to recycling, found some old notebooks, pens that wouldn’t write and a stack of white paper. There were gifts I received a long time ago but never had a use for, there was an old mp3-player I haven’t needed since I got my smartphone and after the course of two afternoons I had 3 empty drawers. Space I could use for the things I actually needed.

I never considered myself a very organized person. Most of the time I would just know where my stuff was but that was in high school. Now that I’m in my mid-twenties I often find myself walking around the room like a crazy person because I can’t find something. I’d always complain about how often I needed to clean up my mess and reorganize things, like finding new space for all my books. But the truth is I am not lazy and I am not messy, I just really own too many things. The more things I own, the more time I’d spend reorganizing and cleaning that mess up.

Books have been the one item I have cherished since I learnt how to read. When I was a kid I would go to the library because most books at home were very old and they smelled like old places no one has lived in for years. I loved taking books home that were appropriate for my age but I still cried for weeks when my mother decided to give away some boxes full of books. I’d never read those books but I felt like being taken away something I had the right to own.

When I was a kid having a big library at home was my biggest dreams. Walls full of books I’d enjoy reading. It meant being smart, it meant being rich, it meant being better than other people. Every respectable person should have lots of books at home. I asked for books for my birthday and spent my money on them when possible but I never gave it a second thought. Was it really necessary?

When we love books, we want to own as many as possible. We buy them with money we don’t have, we put them on our wish list and we make jokes about having too little space for books. We don’t have too many books. We just need more room. We know that people who want a new car, who buy lots of makeup, magazines, or whatever people like to buy are not perfect as we are. Having books is not superficial. Having books is an ideal and it is a status symbol. But it’s a better status symbol than gadgets and fancy cars.

What I realized while reading more about minimalism is that buying and collecting books is no different than whatever other people are buying. Reading books is a good thing and I will still encourage people to read as much as they can, and I am not saying I am giving up reading. But buying books and filling our living space with books is no better than buying and collecting other things that clutter our lives.

At age 26 I haven’t managed yet to get myself that big library I always dreamed of as a kid. But if I were to get rid of the books I have, I would have more space in my room and my closet, on my shelves and in my drawers, books wouldn’t lie around on my desk because there’s no place to put them and I would definetely not have to worry about where to put my new books. Those I would be buying at some point in the future. I rarely read books twice, I read them and put them right next to the other books I haven’t touched in months or years. If I were to sell a few of them, I would be able to buy a library card. I would go to the library like I did as a kid, I would still be able to read the books I want without having them take up the space in my home.

Maybe there will be a top 10 or top 5 I won’t be able to give away, but my first step into becoming minimalist will be to make more space in my life by selling and giving away most of my books.