On donating books and clothes

I ended up re-reading a favorite book, "Everything that remains" by Joshua Fields Millburn and Ryan Nicodemus.

I discovered them way back in 2010 when I was still a college student. The idea of minimalism and still does.

One of the key learning I extracted from reading their blog was to prioritize the essential over the superfluous items in our life. But this is easier said than done.

How do you even know what's essential, when everything looks essential?

For me, what's essential is often marred by this quality called "nostalgia" or "sentimental value".

And this is rather dangerous, especially when yoy're trying to let go.

I have a collection of Groiler Encyclopedia my mom bought for me many years ago. I remember I devoured pages and pages of those sets. It had colorful pictures and I find world history fascinating.

One day, I hid them inside my cabinet and never looked back, until I decided to select books which to donate.

I knew I never read those books again. The decades told me so. I had never accessed them in a long time. Another important lesson I learned is that what's not important for may be important for others.

I could donate those books... but I need to deal with my mental barriers first.

"I need to ask permission from my mom". We have this agreement at home. I can dispose my stuff, as long as I inform her ehat I'm disposing.

"But where shall I donate this?" One of my problems is looking for a "where". I have books and clothes to donate... the only problem is where. Yeah, where. This is an easy problem to solve, which unfortunately, isn't easy for me.

It appears I don't want to deal with the pain of losing these beloved items, even if I haven't treated them with the love and respect I should have given them.