There is a lot of hype around minimalism nowadays. You would have to be living under a rock to not have heard of it, but maybe you like being under the rock so you cannot be influenced. I was, however, influenced.
All of the content creators I follow on YouTube, Instagram and Blogging platforms for a time were all people with varying degrees of minimalism. They all boasted about how much easier life became when you didn’t have to deal with so much stuff. Some people had no furniture and appeared to be happy as can be.
It wasn’t long before I began equating less with more happiness. So I began to declutter. It started off simple enough. Why did I have 3 spatulas? (And one of them melted). This was an easy decision to declutter. I went on like that for some time. There were bits of the house that were off limits because they were not my things to be going through.
I downsized half my wardrobe, and struggled profusely with whether or not to donate my two typewriters because I never had them on display (they are too big really for my small home) but then the time came when I stood before my bookcase, hands on hips and ready to rid myself of a good majority of my book collection.
This was not a good idea in hindsight but we will come back to that. I had very strict rules for this purge. 1 if I hadn’t read it yet (TBR) out it went because the logic was I would never read it. 2 if I read it and didn’t LOVE IT out it went. 3 If they were gifts I never planned to actually sit down and read, like coffee table books, they went as well.
Upon completing this I looked up to find one bookshelf remained and I was giddy with the excitement of not having the mental clutter in the back of my head. Boxes packed up I headed out to Half Price Books to sell back my collection for a bit of cash. They gave me a cart to roll my books into the building. Box after box and 3 cart loads later and my car was free of everything, of all the stories I held dear. The clerk told me it would be a while before they could get through all the books and told me I could wait around the store.
Wandering around the store all I found were more books that I wanted to take home, but refused to pick any of them up off of the shelf. As the minutes ticked by the more my anxiety grew. My brain flashed back to all these books I once owned and wanted to read but were now behind the counter of the bookshop being abandoned. I felt like Andy trying to go off to college without his comfort toys.
Some time later my name was called to come back to the counter and collect my payout for the books presented. Now I’m not a book snob or anything and I’m sure some of the books were not in pristine condition, but this man handed me a receipt for $43 dollars. Over a hundred books easily and the trade off was $43 dollars.
The different anxieties battled in me that moment as tears threatened to spill right then and there. I could either abandon my books, and all the dreams and memories with them or I could refuse and create a sort of terrible walk of shame as I would load back up all my books and wheel them all back out to my car again having wasted everyone’s time.
Ultimately I chose to take the money and leave for the fear of the reaction of the people around me. I managed to make it to the checkout with my receipt as heat and tension clawed at my throat, but by the time I made it out to my car I had lost my composure in a fit of sobs. The sobs turned almost hysterical in the car.
The thing was the books were not taking up space in my brain in a way I didn’t want. That was one of my few passions that I just threw out the door because I believed living with the fewest items possible would bring me happiness. I cried all the way home and I vowed that I would make this mean something.
The moral of this traumatic story is that minimalism isn’t a battle to see how much you can let go of. I will never ever voluntarily give up my books again, but I am very cautious and think long and hard about the books I bring into my home. I take better consideration of the space we have in the home to accommodate books. (I just recently added another bookshelf behind my desk). If something brings you genuine joy there is no reason to be rid of that item.
While sure, I hadn’t read a lot of these books and I was in a reading slump, but they were all stories I wanted to experience. They were all stories I had collected. I still do practice some form of minimalism but nothing to the extreme now. And being more discerning has kept me content with one bookcase for over a year. 2022 was the only time I needed to add on.
Do not let an online presence dictate what you should do in your life. Your life, no matter how much you try, will never perfectly align with someone else’s. Your life, your stuff, your passions are unique to you and that internal voice screaming for you to listen, really does just need you to listen.
There are a few books to this day that I still miss and wish I had back. But that is life. I know now that it will be a waste of money, but I can collect all those missing pieces back into my collection. Nothing is the end of the world here, but the lesson remains powerful. I want inner peace and calm in my life but not at the detriment of my passions and joys.
Thank you for reading! If you would like to see more content around my version of minimalism please leave me a comment and let me know. Has there ever been something you decluttered from your home that you regret?
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