A funny thing happened to me last week, we took out an edition from our Talmud that we haven’t used in years to give to our son. He started learning with a small group and needed one of the volumes for the lessons.
It spurred a conversation with my husband, who has barely used this set since we got married more than 16 years ago. Why are we keeping these? I mean they haven’t been used in so long, and when my husband does learn Talmud he prefers to use a different set than the one we have, so why keep these?
So many of my clients have so many books. Books they have read and books they haven’t read, and while I think books are very important, as is learning, and I read about a book a week, but I hardly ever read a book more than once, so why keep what I won’t read again? Why not let someone else benefit from what I already have used, and can be used again? Why be responsible for something that I won’t use again?
Think about it, when you have extra books on your shelf, they sit there collecting dust, and then you have to dust them (at least occasionally), and to me that doesn’t seem like a great use of time.
I am not saying I use all the books on my shelf all the time, but at a minimum my standard is that it has to be used once a year.
I am curious, how many books are on your shelf and how many are you actually referring to or using? What is your minimum standard, or what will you make it?
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