Moving Day, Part 4 – Why It’s Hard to Get Rid of My Books
I like to read, and the books on my shelf are sort of touchstones/memorials for me. Like family pictures on the wall, they remind me where I’ve come from and what I’ve learned. That makes it hard to give them up.
Reading eBooks has eased my bookshelf shortage. I enjoy being able to read anything I want when I travel without having to take any books with me, and the convenience of being able to access all my highlights and notes electronically is a real plus. But it honestly doesn’t provide the same sense of nostalgia.
The books on my shelf are sort of touchstones/memorials for me
So it comes down to this: I must find a practical way to capture the ways my books have impacted me.
“And Your Point Is…?”
Practical reflection is a lost discipline In the frenetic world we live and play in. We have to plan and manage the effort, or it simply won’t happen.
And we’ll lose sight of what we’ve gained.
So What?
I’m a firm believer in a forward-looking approach to life (my friends can tell you I have the Latin phrase “Semper Incito” [“Always Forward”] painted on my road bike). But at times we should also stop to look back to acquire wisdom, capture important learnings and celebrate key milestones.
Last year David Lyons, the beloved founder of our company, passed away. Putting together a tribute for him proved no easy task, in part because any tribute falls short of capturing the real significance of a man like David. But the more basic reality was that coordinating pictures and dates and events in David’s life that shaped the company’s history was a challenge because they weren’t effectively curated.
The Big Picture
In an age where the news cycle is instantaneous and one hour ago is ancient history, keeping memorials of key events seems trivial and a waste of time. But if all we do is think ahead, how do we tell the great stories of how we got here? How will we know how to mentor or know what to pass on to others?
Downsizing—or operating exclusively with the future in mind—may not allow us to keep all the artifacts, but we need to hold on to the memories.
If all we do is think ahead, how do we tell the great stories of how we got here?
What will you do to capture the key moments in your story?
Interesting thoughts! Telling the story of how we got there is written in the minds of the people that you have impacted and hopefully go on forever. They are imprinted on their minds and the ideals and leadership skills that you impart are all part of the process that I refer to as “Accumulated Knowledge”. The wisdom and or interactions that you have with individuals accumulate and that is passed on to another generation. Reading books of all sorts is passed on from one generation to another. My grandfather was an avid reader, my dad was an avid reader, I read all sorts of books and my daughters are both avid readers.
Thanks for the comment, Phillip, and I agree: It does stick in the mind of those we impact—assuming we tell them about it. My concern is that it’s happening less frequently, for probably lots of reasons (we seem so busy and chaotic; we don’t do much reflection, of which the “passing on” to others is a natural outcome).